   
CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!
 S7Steel Ball saviour: How Taipei 101, Taiwan's tallest skyscraper, battles earthquakes   The recent earthquake, measuring 7.4 magnitude on the Richter scale, rocked the island nation of Taiwan. It caused damage across the island, however, one remarkable feat of engineering saved a structure amid the chaos.While many buildings suffered damage and some even fell due to the tremors, Taipei 101, once the world's tallest skyscraper, survived and the secret of it lies in its innovative design elements, especially a colossal steel orb called a tuned mass damper.
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S1What makes some people left-handed? A study tries to unravel the reasons  How some people can use their left hand to perform all major tasks of the day, including writing, has always intrigued the right-handed lot. This inquisitiveness has also made many scientists scratch their heads, as there is no proven theory of how some people acquire left-handedness, and whether their brain wiring is somewhat different than their rivals, right-handed people.The team deduced that left-handed people are 2.7 times more likely to have rare coding variants in a gene called TUBB4B that codes for tubulins that make microtubules. These microtubules are responsible for forming the major part of the cytoskeleton which gives cells their shape. The microtubules are also important for neuron development, migration and plasticity.
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Editor's Note: They discovered that people with two variations in genes previously are related to autism, DSCAM and FOXP1; potentially also having higher chances of being left-handed.
S2Editor's Note: While it is highly unlikely that we will ever flatten the landscape of harm, we can do far more to nurture recovery and build resilience if we recognize how traumatic signatures unfold - and how to create action plans to work through them.
S3Editor's Note: In absolute terms, the region created an average of 10 million jobs a year when the working-age population was growing by an average of 19 million a year.
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S6Editor's Note: But from my perspective, technology has not yet done the thing that technology needs to do in healthcare, the thing it's done across many other industries, across the economy - inject productivity and efficiency gains to help bring into balance all of the demand for healthcare from our patients and the supply we have to offer, which arguably has been relatively fixed.
S8Editor's Note: When vetting AI tools, think like a hedge fund manager, not a VC S9Marie Howe's Stunning Hymn of Humanity, Animated  I remember singing Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” in the choir of the Bulgarian Math Academy as a child. I remember my awe at learning that across centuries of warring nationalisms, this piece of music, based on an old Schiller poem and born of Beethoven’s unimaginable trials, had become the official Hymn of Europe — a bridge of harmony across human divides. I remember wondering as I sang whether music is something we make or something we are made of. That is what Pythagoras, too, wondered when he laid the foundation of Western music by discovering the mathematics of harmony. Its beauty so staggered him that he thought the entire universe must be governed by it. He called it music of the spheres — the idea that every celestial body produces in its movement a unique hum determined by its orbit.
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S10Editor's Note: Such tourism is set to generate upward of billion in revenue across numerous cities, from Austin, Texas, to Rochester, New York. These cities will all be prime places to see the eclipse, which will be fully visible in parts of the southern US, the Midwest, and New England. S11Let Go of the Learning Baggage  We all want to learn better. That means retaining information, processing it, being able to use it when needed. More knowledge means better instincts; better insights into opportunities for both you and your organization. You will ultimately produce better work if you give yourself the space to learn. Yet often organizations get in the way of learning.How do we learn how to learn? Usually in school, combined with instructions from our parents, we cobble together an understanding that allows us to move forward through the school years until we matriculate into a job. Then because most initial learning comes from doing, less from books, we switch to an on-the-fly approach.
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Editor's Note: Thinking and talking are useful elements of learning. And what we learn in our 'play' time can be valuable to our 'work' time, and there's nothing wrong with moving between the two (or combining them) during our day. S12S1335 Years Later, Michael Keaton Admits His One Surprising Batman Mistake  Back when he was gearing up to play the Caped Crusader, Robert Pattinson caught a bit of flack from the comic book community for absconding his training for The Batman. Pattinson joked to GQ about ignoring his personal trainer — and made plain his distaste for gym culture.“Literally, I’m just barely doing anything,” the actor told GQ. “I think if you’re working out all the time, you’re part of the problem ... You set a precedent. No one was doing this in the ’70s. Even James Dean — he wasn’t exactly ripped.”
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S14'Supergirl's Surprising Director May Reveal a Bold New Take on the Hero  DC Studios is turning to a director with the perfect combination of knowledge for the unique project.Up until now, DC Studios has wisely focused on bringing in female talent for Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow so far: playwright Ana Nogueira will pen the script, and Kara Danvers herself will be played by House of the Dragon Season 1 star Milly Alcock. However, the studio recently announced that the film will be helmed by a male director — which seems like an odd choice at first glance, but one look at the filmmaker’s resume suggests that this he may be uniquely attuned to shepherd this Supergirl into a new era.
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S15Netflix's '3 Body Problem' Highlights An Astronomical Mystery That Stumped Isaac Newton  It’s more than an intriguing sci-fi book and show — it’s also an astronomical conundrum that’s beguiled some of the world’s greatest minds for more than three centuries.Take a glance at our solar system and beyond, and outer space seems pretty orderly. Our eight planets travel around the Sun with apparent predictability and even the stars themselves appear to march in orbit around the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s heart. That’s why hundreds of years ago, astronomers and natural philosophers understandably referred to the cosmos as a kind of “Clockwork Universe,” one that was wound at creation and has been ticking along in complete perfection ever since.
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S16Star Wars Has Finally Fixed 'Rise of Skywalker's Dumbest Plot Twist  The Rise of Skywalker contained a lot of baffling choices. Rey and Kylo, the grandchildren of Palpatine and Anakin, kissed. It was revealed that Poe Dameron used to be a spice runner. A random shot of a slug alien earned meme immortality. But the strangest and most divisive choice was randomly bringing back Palpatine as the secret mastermind behind the entire sequel trilogy. Star Wars has been working hard to retroactively justify that plot twist ever since. The Mandalorian has hinted at a big backstory behind “Somehow, Palpatine returned,” and now the latest episode of The Bad Batch has revealed just how deep the conspiracy goes — and how far the Empire would go to keep it covered up.
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S172024's Scariest Religious Thriller Sets a New Standard For Hollywood Prequels  “It’s all for you.” Those four words are perhaps best known as a devilish promise from protector to Antichrist, but now, they can also be seen as a heartfelt dedication from director Arkasha Stevenson to fans of the beloved horror series she took up the helm of. The First Omen, a prequel entry to the 1976 original, is an engrossing trip into the dark heart of evil and what it means to be chosen by the cruel hand of fate — and surprisingly, it lives up to the strength, power, and overarching dread of its source material.The First Omen follows Margaret (Game of Thrones’ Nell Tiger Free), an American girl who comes to work at a Roman orphanage run by the church before taking her vows to become a nun. There she discovers an earth-shattering conspiracy to unleash the Antichrist upon the world — as well as her own mysterious and irrevocable part in it all.
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S18Hatsune Miku Joins the Cast of the Best Indie Rhythm Game in New DLC  Crypt of the NecroDancer has been available for an astonishing nine years now, a fact I never stop being surprised by. That’s because its rhythm game meets dungeon crawler premise still feels as fresh as it did on release day, and because it’s still getting substantial updates all these years later. Case in point, last month saw the full release of the Synchrony DLC, which adds an online multiplayer mode among other features, and the game is already getting a smaller, no less exciting update today. Starting today, everyone’s favorite robot pop star joins the roster with Crypt of the NecroDancer’s Hatsune Miku character DLC.Just in case you’ve slept on Crypt of the NecroDancer all this time, here’s the premise: It’s a 2D dungeon crawler with movement on a grid like Dungeons of Dreadrock, but instead of moving on turns, you do it on beats. Each level is set to a catchy track with a clear beat, and mistiming your movements costs you health. Enemies also move on the beat — colliding with them while they’re still or moving away will hurt them, but doing so while they’re moving toward your character will hurt you.
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S19'The Matrix 5' Has Nowhere to Go But Down  Last night, for the first time since 2021, I watched The Matrix: Resurrections. And for the most part, I liked it — until I didn’t. But it all convinced me of one simple thing: The Matrix 5 is doomed.Back in 2021, I had built Resurrections up in my head to the point that it was destined to crash and burn. Not only was this a sequel to my favorite movie ever (plus two more films that I begrudgingly like a little more each time I watch them), but I became convinced that Matrix 4 could do the impossible. I indulged in wild fan theories, speculating that the movie would reference a spinoff video game I’d never even played to explain how Morpheus died offscreen in between Revolutions and Resurrections. Of course, it did not such thing.
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S20'Fantastic Four's Silver Surfer Casting Sets Up a Mind-Blowing Marvel Crossover  Marvel’s long-awaited take on the Fantastic Four is shaping up to be a subversive one. With each member of the First Family already cast, fans have been speculating on which antagonist will follow them onto the silver screen, and now we have our answer in the form of the Silver Surfer. Ozark’s Julia Garner will portray the character in Fantastic Four, but her casting is more than just a classic gender-swap.The Silver Surfer is primarily the alter ego of Norrin Radd, and comic adaptations rarely stray from that incarnation. Matt Shakman’s Fantastic Four will be the first to feature a different Surfer: Garner is Shalla-Bal, a character with close ties to Radd. In most timelines, Shalla-Bal is his one true love. They both hail from the utopian planet of Zenn-La, where Shalla-Bal serves as Empress. Norrin Radd usually becomes the Surfer to protect the planet from Galactus.
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S21A Sequel to 2024's Best Strategy RPG Might Be Too Much of A Good Thing  Unicorn Overlord released to rave reviews and solid sales this March, quickly becoming developer Vanillaware’s most successful launch. Unsurprisingly, that’s led Sega, the owner of publisher Atlus, to consider whether a sequel would be worth pursuing. While fans seem excited about the possibility — and I would probably play it, too — I can’t help but feel that a sequel would be missing what makes Vanillaware great.To be clear, there’s no indication that a Unicorn Overlord sequel is actually underway. Atlus has released similar surveys after launches in the Persona series before as a way to gauge player interest and reactions. The question about a sequel comes at the end of the survey, after more general questions onthe game. The difference is that a new Persona game is pretty much a given after every release in the series, while a sequel to a Vanillaware game is unheard of.
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S22Star Wars Is Finally Giving 'The Mandalorian's Best Villain the Attention She Deserves  Before Star Wars started making TV shows, the morality of the saga as a whole was very cut and dry: the rebellion is good and the Empire is bad. In the original trilogy and the prequel trilogy, we saw the fall and the rise of the Empire, but the finer points of the regime outside of its nondescript evilness weren’t really explored. Once Star Wars television like The Mandalorian and Andor were released, we finally got a more complete image of just how a new galactic authority can operate. In a new animated series entitled Tales of the Empire, Dave Filoni will dive deep into two of the most fascinating women in Star Wars TV: Barriss Offee and Morgan Elsbeth. This series of shorts, which premieres on Disney+ on May 4, will shed some much-needed light on the Dark Side and the complex ways of the Empire at its height. Check out the trailer for the series below.
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S23'X-Men '97' Just Nailed an Underrated Character's Complicated Origin Story  Marvel’s Cinematic Universe is not averse to creative liberties, especially in live-action. MCU films tend to fudge or ignore comic book storylines, and it’s rare for the franchise to present a 1:1 adaptation of its source material. That’s not necessarily bad, but it can lead to less-than-satisfactory origin stories for characters that deserve better.So far, X-Men ’97 has avoided this issue, as the animated series has sped through some of the comics’ most unwieldy storylines in just four episodes. It’s taken a few liberties, particularly where characters like Madelyne Pryor are concerned, but X-Men ’97 is mostly skewing close to the events of the comics. That even extends to its latest addition, Forge, and his complex comic book origins. Spoilers ahead for Episode 4!
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S24'Dragon's Dogma 2' Is Inventing Fake Players and I Don't Know Who to Trust Anymore  Of everything that sets Dragon’s Dogma 2 apart from other fantasy RPGs, its most inventive (and certainly the least controversial) feature may well be the Pawns. These player-created AI companions accompany adventurers on their journey and can even be sent to other players to return with knowledge, experience, and rewards. It’s a system that lets players forge a fleeting but important connection with each other that enriches the sense of the game as a living world — but as it turns out, that may all be a lie, and I’m in shambles.With so many Pawns vying for attention, some are naturally going to be less popular, and Capcom has a fix for that. In the event that a Pawn isn’t getting hired by other players, the game will simply fake it, telling the Pawns’ owner that they were borrowed by a player who doesn’t actually exist, as spotted by Reddit user MrFoxer and reported by Eurogamer. The only way to tell whether that’s the case is to try checking the user’s profile. If they’re a fake, you won’t even get the option.
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S25Apple's Home Robots Need To Be More Than Just iPads on Wheels  It took Apple 10 years to finally pull the plug on its electric vehicle project, and now, with plans for the Apple Car officially scrapped, the company is left with a void for what its next ambitious project should be. According to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, home robots could fill that gap.Apple reportedly has a skunkworks team that has been working on a couple of robot designs, including one similar to Amazon’s Astro bot and another that sounds like an iPad that robotically swivels and can track your face. We’re not getting our hopes up since Gurman notes that Apple is still very early in the development process, but if anyone could make personal robots feel more approachable, it would be Apple.
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S26'Dune 3' Is in Development -- And It Could Arrive Sooner Than We Think  Denis Villeneuve is a busy man. The filmmaker has spent years crafting the blockbusters that would become Dune: Part One and Dune: Part Two, but the fate of the third part of the potential trilogy, Dune: Messiah, had been up in the air. Villeneuve had expressed interest in completing the trilogy, but it was unclear if he (or Legendary Entertainment) would want to return to Arrakis so soon.Now, however, we have confirmation that Villeneuve’s Dune: Messiah will come to theaters and be watched dozens of times by superfans. Legendary confirmed to Variety that Dune: Messiah is in development, ending a long period of speculation about whether we’d see Villeneuve’s trilogy conclude on the silver screen. Villeneuve said he’d envisioned his version of Dune as a trilogy as early as 2021, and now that vision will come to fruition.
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S27'Invincible' Showrunner Breaks Down Season 2's Wild Ending -- And Teases Season 3 Plans  Throughout Invincible’s second season, teenage superhero Mark Grayson (Steven Yeun) has felt trapped between two worlds.In the wake of Omni-Man’s (J.K. Simmons) absence, he’s become the de facto leader of the “Guardians of the Globe,” the last resort to save the Earth from its various threats. He’s also just started college, building a reputation as an absentee freshman with bad study habits. Understandably, his dual identities and existential burdens become hard to reconcile: Will he shake his father’s reputation, or take on the Viltrumites’ genocidal campaign? Will he make time for school and his girlfriend Amber, or is his job too demanding and all-encompassing? Will he be able to protect and console his mother, or bring more danger to her doorstep?
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S28This Easy, Free App Helps Take Beautiful Pictures of the Eclipse From Your Phone  University of Colorado Boulder astronomer Doug Duncan spent the months of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown working on an app that is about to become incredibly popular.“I take people to see eclipses,” says Duncan, “and in the last few, I noticed a lot of people trying to take a picture with their phone, but usually failing. One reason is that it's kind of hard to hold your phone, hold a pair of eclipse glasses in front of your phone with your other hand, and with your third hand, control the camera.” To solve that problem, he put together a solar filter designed for phone cameras.
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S29Max Just Quietly Added the Most Important Movie of 2023  A scene of disturbed slumber underscores a central point of Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest: Hedwig Höss (Sandra Hüller), wife of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), invites her mother, Linna (Imogen Kogge), for a visit to their sprawling and stately farmhouse; one might call the estate “idyllic” were it located somewhere, anywhere, other than a concentration camp’s backyard.At first, Linna brims with pride for her daughter’s success: “You’ve certainly landed on your feet,” she tells Hedwig after strolling through the house. Never mind that they’re standing, figuratively and not quite literally, on the bones and ashes of Jewish prisoners murdered next door. Never mind that Linna abruptly wakes up from a backyard snooze coughing up a lung, an effect of the smoke plumes billowing nonstop from Auschwitz’s chimneys. And never mind that Linna recognizes Hedwig’s drapes as having belonged to the Jewish woman she once cleaned for, and who is now most likely fertilizer for the Höss’ gardens. It doesn’t matter how Hedwig built her wealth. It only matters that she did.
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S30A nine-step guide to a sensible microdosing programme | Aeon Essays  Psychedelics are resurging in the 21st century. The movement is frequently described as a psychedelic renaissance; Michael Pollan, author, journalist and psychedelics advocate, writes that ‘There has never been a more exciting – or bewildering – time in the world of psychedelics.’ Spanning numerous domains and branches of modern society – including medicine, psychotherapy, pharmaceutical drug development, self-improvement and spiritual transformation – individuals and communities worldwide are evolving with psychedelics as the conduit.The loudest declaration to date of the psychedelics comeback may have been the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference in Denver, Colorado, hosted by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in June, attended by some 12,000 people. Conference-goers heard talks about psychedelics from a diversity of perspectives, from Rick Doblin, the founder of MAPS and a decades-long champion of psychedelics, to Rick Perry, who introduced himself as ‘the dark, knuckle-dragging, Right-wing, Republican former governor of the state of Texas’.
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S31S32S33S34S35More than 200 aid workers have been killed in Gaza, making famine more likely  Seven aid workers from the food aid charity World Central Kitchen were killed in Gaza on Monday night when their convoy was attacked in a confirmed Israeli drone strike. This puts the death toll among humanitarians at over 200. Most of them have been Palestinians. Gaza is the most dangerous place in the world to be an aid worker.It is also the most dangerous place to be a civilian. Delivering, as well as receiving humanitarian assistance can be deadly. In February, Israeli soldiers fired into a crowd gathered to collect flour, killing over 100 in what has been dubbed the “flour massacre”.
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S36S37How medieval chroniclers interpreted solar eclipses and other celestial events  Over 800 years ago, around 1195, Gervase, a monk based at Canterbury Cathedral, included in his chronicles a series of reflections on natural, mostly celestial, phenomena. In this he was far from unusual. Medieval monastic thinkers often recorded celestial events such as eclipses. Most medieval observation of the heavens was by eye. Chroniclers, if not observing the event themselves, would rely on an eyewitness or other written records for the details.
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S38Xi and Biden spoke on the phone for 105 minutes: what does this say about their relationship?  US president, Joe Biden, and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jingping, talked on the phone this week for the first time since meeting in November. While the call signals both sides’ interest in stabilising their relationship, it also underscores the significant international, and national challenges, that Beijing and Washington face.Xi and Biden are believed to have covered Taiwan, the possible US TikTok ban, tariffs and Chinese support for Russia, in the 105 minute call.
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S39S40Perinatal depression linked with premenstrual mood disorders - new research  Changes in mood are a common experience for many women throughout their reproductive years. Menstruation, pregnancy and menopause are all punctuated by hormonal fluctuations – and these fluctuations can affect a person’s mood.But for the millions of women who have a premenstrual disorder, such as severe premenstrual syndrome (PMS) or premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), these mood changes can be far more severe than normal. Symptoms are typically confined to the days before menstruation – yet the chronic and cyclical nature of premenstrual disorders, particularly PMDD, can profoundly affect a person’s life.
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S41Why the BBC has a licence fee and what might happen if it were scrapped  The TV licence is as much part of British life as the BBC, which it helps to fund. But in an era of increased media choice – much of it available online, through voluntary subscriptions or even for free – BBC director general Tim Davie has said it is right to ask questions about the “longevity” of this universal fee.Critics say that the TV licence is an unfair burden on the less well-off, and that the BBC wastes public money while failing to live up to its declared commitment to political impartiality.
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S42Why losing a parent when you're a young adult is so hard  Losing a parent is never easy. Although the grief of parentally bereaved children and adolescents is widely recognised by charities and in media, people in their twenties and thirties can be overlooked. Grief is the price we pay for love. The closer our attachment to the person we lose, the more intense our grief. As we get older, we gradually accept that our parents will not be around forever. If they die young when we are still young, it comes as a shock. Both men and women of any age who remain single and living with either or both parents, often display intense grief on becoming orphaned.
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S43S44S45Gaza update: pressure mounts on Israel's allies to stop supplying the weapons to prevent genocide  The missiles that struck the World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid convoy this week, killing seven aid workers, including three Britons, were likely to have been “absolutely perfectly accurate” Spike missiles. This from a former British army procurement officer quoted in The Times. “If you aim at the driver’s side, you will hit the driver full-on,” Chris Lincoln-Jones told the newspaper. “If you were across the street from the car, you’d be shaken up and you might be hit by a few splinters, but you would survive.”Israel has denied targeting the three WCK vehicles, with economy minister Nir Barkat saying Israel was “terribly sorry” about killing the WCK workers but that “unfortunately, in wars friendly fire happens”.
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S46You Are Not Alone: powerful new film documents how women's protest against misogyny helped change Spain's rape laws  On July 8 2016, a young woman was gang-raped by five men at the San Fermin bull-running festival in Pamplona. This horrific attack led to a legal case that would grip Spain and bring about changes in national laws relating to gender-based violence.“Lucía” was raped by a group of young men who had travelled from Seville to the festival. The members – one of whom was an officer in Spain’s civil guard – proudly shared details of the attack among themselves via WhatsApp, in which they referred to themselves as “the wolf pack” (la manada).
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S47S48S49Without community support, the green energy transition will fail. Here's how to get communities on board  Dr Simon Wright is a member of RE-Alliance, a not-for-profit renreable advocacy organisation focused on the clean energy transition in the regions. Connecting cheap, clean energy from renewables comes with a hidden cost and challenge: building 5,000 kilometres of new transmission lines this decade, and another 5,000km after that. This sounds like a lot, but 5,000km is only around 10% of the existing grid network, and unlocks more than 32 gigawatts of new clean energy capacity by 2030.
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