   
CEO Picks - The best that international journalism has to offer!
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S1Editor's Note: Scientists do have a good sense of where earthquakes could happen. Using historical records and geologic measurements, they can highlight potential seismic hot spots and the kinds of tremors they face. (You can check out the US Geological Survey's interactive map of fault lines and NOAA's interactive map of seismic events.)
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S3Editor's Note: Embracing play is a bold defiance against the relentless productivity mantra of the achievement society. But we should also be careful not to fall into the self-help trap. Any injunction to 'find your inner child' or to 'seek out your play personality' without structural change risks being a toothless act.
S4Editor's Note: Microsoft said that "at a minimum" China will create and distribute through social media AI-generated content that "benefits their positions in these high-profile elections."
S5Editor's Note: Banks don't lend out money from reserves or deposits or other sources of pre-existing funds. Counterintuitively, the loans come first.
S6Editor's Note: The authors hypothesized that lonely people pay attention to different aspects of situations from non-lonely people, which causes those who feel lonely to perceive themselves as being different from their peers. This would mean that loneliness can feed back on itself, becoming worse over time.
S710 Affordable Ways to Spend Quality Time With Your Kids   It's not just Disneyland's prices that are going up. Museums, science centers, and other cultural meccas have to charge more for admission as the years crawl on. However, there are ways to get in at a reduced price. Many institutions offer family days or a "pay-what-you-can" day several times yearly. Some city libraries have a "culture pass" to check out for free admission to an art or culture institution. Your child's school may offer something similar. Do some Googling, and you'll likely never pay full price to see a priceless work of art with your kid. Since my family lives in the Southwest, we often drive by mountains my son wants to conquer. Rather than keep talking about it, my wife and oldest son crafted a plan for a weekly hike to work their way up to the tallest mountain in our area. I loved seeing the sense of accomplishment on their faces when they completed their final hike.
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S8Editor's Note: "If your total cholesterol is elevated because of the HDL, then you might not be at higher risk and actually might be somewhat protected," Gersch says, "so it's very important to not only get your total cholesterol levels, but to make sure it's broken down into the good and bad cholesterol." S9Editor's Note: "So why is the second law of thermodynamics the probable cause of aging? It governs the behavior of all molecules; it can explain the ultimate cause of all other theories of aging; it is testable using current technologies; it's falsifiable; it is universal and applies to both animate and inanimate objects." S10S11S12S13S14Star Wars is Doubling Down on a Controversial Force Trick  Star Wars television is constantly working to stay fresh. Even though every series so far has been set before the sequel trilogy, new elements and storylines are added into the gaps in between movies. But this strategy will be put to the test with The Acolyte, which is set further in the past than any previous show. A new interview with Acolyte showrunner Leslye Headland suggests the series sets up a new method that next appears almost 150 years later, but will clearly only become more common. The Acolyte boasts an all-star cast including Amandla Stenberg, Dafne Keen, and Lee Jung-Jae, but the series will also feature iconic sci-fi actress Carrie-Anne Moss, best known for playing Trinity in the Matrix saga, as Jedi Master Indara. According to Headland, this casting was entirely deliberate.
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S15'Endless Ocean Luminous' Vibey Promo Video Is the Best Way to Advertise A Game  Endless Ocean Luminous first made a splash (sorry) at a Nintendo Direct in February, introducing new players to the Endless Ocean series, which began on the Wii. Nintendo revealed a 30-player online mode and showed off some of the wild biodiversity swimming through the game’s oceans. Now, Nintendo has released an update on a few of Endless Ocean Luminous’ key features, and more importantly, its vibes.The initial Endless Ocean Luminous announcement showed off its deep-sea diving gameplay, which lets players explore the ocean and encounter more than 500 different species living there — including some more fantastical options you won’t find on a real-world diving trip. By all appearances, it’s an utterly chill experience about enjoying the beauty of its marine world with other players.
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S16Apple's Stylish New Noir Thriller Wouldn't Have Happened Without Colin Farrell  Colin Farrell is no stranger to playing the grizzled detective. His Sonny Crockett in Michael Mann’s Miami Vice was a taciturn undercover detective, while Ray Velcoro in True Detective was a volatile corrupt cop. But he’s never played a character quite like John Sugar in Apple TV+’s genre-bending noir series Sugar.“This guy is so pursuant, he's so consciously aware of what he feels, his own moral compass, and living a good, clean, decent life,” Farrell tells Inverse. “And that felt almost out of place for this world of neo-noir.”
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S17Nothing's Phone 2a Is the Most Compelling Budget Phone I've Ever Used  A combination of thoughtful design and savvy compromises helps the Phone 2a punch way above its weight.Nothing has a lot of lofty goals. The tech startup founded by Carl Pei wants to make tech fun. To that end, it’s (at times painstakingly) developed a standout design language that incorporates elements like transparency and “technological warmth.” The Ear 1 and Ear 2 wireless earbuds were supposed to be — at least design-wise — a foil to the iconic but tired look of AirPods, and the Phone 1 and Phone 2, naturally, an alternative to the now rinse-and-repeat silhouette of an iPhone.
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S18BYD's First Electric Pickup Looks Like a Killer Alternative to the Ford F-150 Lightning  If there’s one EV from BYD that should come to the U.S., it’s the company’s upcoming all-electric pickup truck.As spotted by CnEVPost with spy photos, the Chinese automaker is planning to make its first-ever electric pickup. BYD’s all-electric pickup has yet to be named but photos reveal that it’s sporting a big and bulky body that looks like it perfectly caters to America’s appetite for dangerously large cars.
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S19Why Tesla's Affordable EV May Already Be Doomed  A recent report from Reuters dropped the bombshell that Tesla has scrapped plans for its mass-produced affordable EV. According to the report, two sources said they learned of the decision to scrap the project, often referred to as the Model 2, as early as February. Instead, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk wants to focus solely on a robotaxi EV, according to Reuters. Musk has already refuted the report on X, but it still casts a lot of doubt on Tesla’s ability to deliver an EV that starts at around $25,000.
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S2065 Weird New Things on Amazon That Are So Damn Clever  We live in the weirdest of times. We are well past the invention of the automobile, airplane, spaceship, and bread slicer. Today, everyone with the kind of brain that creates devices to solve problems is either focused on big-picture issues like artificial intelligence or carbon-free energy — or they have tuned into small problems like making produce last longer and improving indoor plumbing. These are bright minds and those are real problems, so the results are often brilliant. Take a look at these 65 weird new things on Amazon that are so damn clever and you’ll see.Transform every trip to the toilet into a moment of personal cleanliness with this bidet attachment that puts an upside-down shower under the toilet seat. It’s easy to install, easy to use, and life-changing. One reviewer raved: “How did I live 38 years without this? It’s so easy to install and use!”
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S21If One of These Stars Explodes the Radioactive Atoms Could Decimate Life on Earth  Most of these cataclysms are remote, but when they occur closer to home, they can pose a threat to life on Earth.Stars, like the Sun, are remarkably constant. They vary in brightness by only 0.1 percent over years and decades, thanks to the fusion of hydrogen into helium that powers them. This process will keep the Sun shining steadily for about 5 billion more years, but when stars exhaust their nuclear fuel, their deaths can lead to pyrotechnics.
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S222024's Trippiest Sci-Fi Movie Reveals Its Director's "Fear of the Present"  The Beast director Bertrand Bonello talks love, desire, and AI in his cosmic sci-fi romance.Halfway into my interview with director Bertrand Bonello, he quickly replies to my question about whether the pivotal purification machines, featured in his latest sci-fi film The Beast, benefit or destroy humanity. Bonello puts his glass down and asks me, “What do you think?” After I tell him that these machines, which effectively purge people of their emotions by letting them relive key relationships in their past lives, could mean anything and that it’s “a mystery that you don’t have to reveal,” he rapidly becomes candid about their damage to this near-future 2044 setting.
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S23Thousands of Years Ago, Ancient Mayans Developed an Impressive System For Predicting an Eclipse  We live in a light-polluted world, where streetlamps, electronic ads, and even backyard lighting block out all but the brightest celestial objects in the night sky. But travel to an officially protected “Dark Sky” area, gaze skyward, and be amazed.This is the view of the heavens people had for millennia. Pre-modern societies watched the sky and created cosmographies, maps of the skies that provided information for calendars and agricultural cycles. They also created cosmologies, which, in the original use of the word, were religious beliefs to explain the universe. The gods and the heavens were inseparable.
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S2410 Years Ago, HBO Sneakily Changed 'Game of Thrones' in One Surprising Way  They were the words that changed Game of Thrones forever. In one shocking scene, ominously dubbed the Red Wedding, Robb and Catelyn Stark were brutally slain, with Robb’s wife and unborn child not far behind. The scene wasn’t just shocking for ending a storyline on the most downer note possible. It wasn’t even in the season finale: it was the penultimate episode of Season 3, leaving the finale for the immediate fallout. But when the series came back for Season 4, there was a definite vibe shift, a change in the very format of the series that, for better or for worse, would last for another four seasons.
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S26Nukes in space: a bad idea in the 1960s - an even worse one now  The US and Japan are sponsoring a resolution for debate by the United Nations security council which – if passed – will reaffirm international commitments to the 1967 outer space treaty (OST) forbidding the deployment and use of nuclear weapons in space.The call, headed by US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield and Japan’s foreign minister Yoko Kamikawa, follows troubling reports that Russia could be developing a nuclear capable anti-satellite weapon. As an expert on space and nuclear weapons, I find these reports concerning but not surprising because nuclear anti-satellite weapons have been proposed since the cold war in the 1960s.
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S27S28How the UK's new rights around flexible working will affect employees and businesses  Employees in the UK have just received a new right to request flexible working arrangements from the first day of a new job. This is courtesy of the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act and supporting secondary legislation, which are in force from April 6, and represent an important change to employment regulations for Britain’s 1.5 million employers. Flexible working covers numerous arrangements that deviate from “standard” employment practices, such as part-time work, compressed hours, job shares, flexitime and remote working. UK employees all received a right to ask for such arrangements when the Flexible Working Regulations were extended in 2014. However, this came with substantial restrictions, such as applicants having had to be in post for 26 weeks, so that in practice most workplaces arranged flexible working either informally or outside of the statutory request process.
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S29The five-step wellness model that really works - and the psychology behind it  It’s not a surprise that wellness culture has become so popular, especially among women and young people. A US$4.4 trillion (£3.5 trillion) wellness industry promises that clean beauty, clean eating and energy-boosting supplements will provide happiness, meaning and a stress-free existence. But if wellness can be bought, why aren’t we all happier?Purchases may make us happy (and even reduce some lingering sadness) but genuine changes to wellbeing are probably limited. In fact, feminist critics, journalists and psychologists have expressed concerns that wellness culture may exacerbate destructive perfectionism, promote an unhealthy relationship with our bodies, and even draw people into conspiracy theories and multi-level marketing scams.
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S30S31Polls predict total wipeout for the Tories - and Britain's constitution makes it a real possibility  A spate of opinion polls has led to fevered speculation that the Tories won’t just lose the next election, they will be wiped out. In one projection doing the rounds, the government loses 250 MPs and is left with fewer than 100 seats. The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, and chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, both lose their seats in this scenario.The spectre of a “Canadian-style” wipeout is in the air – a reference to the plight of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (PCP), which went from being in government to losing all but two of its seats in the federal election of 1993 – including that of the prime minister, Kim Campbell.
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S32S33Scoop: Netflix depiction of Prince Andrew interview is a welcome addition to the journalism film canon  The car crash interview with Prince Andrew was indeed a scoop for then BBC Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis. Its depiction in the new Netflix film Scoop is a reminder of the power of the one-to-one interview where, as in a courtroom drama, the subject has nowhere to hide from a well-informed investigator.The 2019 interview led directly to Andrew’s withdrawal from royal duties. But the Netflix version focuses less on the consequences for the royals, and more on the scaffolding that supports a great news story.
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S34Turning camels into cows: megafarms are being set up to produce camel milk on industrial scales  An animal that once grazed and browsed over huge distances is increasingly being enclosed in vast Middle Eastern dairy farms, where thousands of camels are milked by machine. This is the model of sedentary farming that produced modern cows, sheep and pigs. Camels have so far resisted it – yet in certain ways, they are ideal livestock for the next climate reality. Camels evolved to cope with very hot days and freezing cold desert nights. They can go for days with little water or vegetation, and produce less methane than cows, sheep and other ruminants.
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S35Biden steps up pressure on Israel - using the key levers available against an ally with strong domestic support  The fraying relationship between the U.S. and Israel over the latter country’s conduct of its war in Gaza got even worse on April 4, 2024, several days after Israel killed seven aid workers in a drone strike. President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and warned him that the U.S. would put conditions on future support for Israel based on how Israel addresses concerns about civilian casualties and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel must permit more food and other supplies into Gaza, the president said, and agree to an immediate cease-fire. The Conversation’s senior politics and democracy editor, Naomi Schalit, spoke with American University foreign policy scholar Jordan Tama about the extraordinary threat Biden made to Netanyahu, whose country is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign aid since World War II.
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S36College athletes still are not allowed to be paid by universities - here's why  Ever since July 1, 2021, student-athletes have been able to pursue endorsement deals. But when it comes to getting paid by the universities for which they play, the students have been shut down. Here, Cyntrice Thomas, a professor of sport management at the University of Florida, answers questions about the hurdles that stand in the way of college athletes being compensated for their athleticism.Not long after it was formed in 1906, the NCAA prohibited schools from compensating student-athletes for their athletic ability. In 1948, the NCAA adopted the Sanity Code, which also prohibited athletic scholarships for students who couldn’t demonstrate financial need or economic hardship.
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S37What causes earthquakes in the Northeast, like the magnitude 4.8 that shook New Jersey? A geoscientist explains  It’s rare to feel earthquakes in the U.S. Northeast, so the magnitude 4.8 earthquake in New Jersey that shook buildings in New York City and was felt from Maryland to Boston on April 5, 2024, drew a lot of questions. It was one of the strongest earthquakes on record in New Jersey, though there were few reports of damage. A smaller, magnitude 3.8 earthquake, described as an aftershock, rattled the region a few hours later.We asked geoscientist Gary Solar of Buffalo State University to explain what causes earthquakes in this region.
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S38What was it like when human beings transformed the Earth?  When each of us is first born into this world, it might feel like the world was made for humanity. For the past few generations — now encompassing every living human being — there have been billions of us, spread out across every continent, with sprawling cities, towns, villages, and farms being home to most of us. And yet, the arrival of human beings on Earth was anything but an inevitability. Although the Universe created the conditions and ingredients that made our existence possible, it was only a series of unlikely events that unfolded that allowed our species, specifically, to rise to prominence. If even one of a countless number of outcomes had been different, our species may never have arisen on planet Earth.Around 300,000 years ago, however, the first examples of our species — Homo sapiens — arose in Africa, having evolved from our shared common ancestors. For nearly all of that time, we lived concurrently with other hominids like Homo erectus and Neanderthals, with all of us making use of fire, tools, clothing, language, and artificially-built shelters. There’s even evidence that many of us interbred with the other hominids. And yet, the passage of just a few hundred thousand years saw us rise from a primitive hunter-gatherer society to the technologically-advanced modern world. This is the final stage in the story of the Universe that brings us up to the present day: how human civilization developed, and the consequences of that development for our world in 2024.
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S39Debunking the 'billionaire = genius' myth  Professor and author Brian Klass joins us to debunk a common misconception about wealth – that all those who have it are smarter than average. Klass uses probability to explain that though this is an easy assumption to make, it’s technically not correct. He points to Elon Musk as a case study, noting that while Musk’s skills have contributed to his achievements, his success also depends on his pre-existing resources and collaboration with others. In situations where Musk has worked individually (such as during his acquisition of Twitter), he has seen less success, and, ultimately, less profit.
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S40The Big Bang's mysteries and unsolvable "first cause" problem  If there’s one question that has been present throughout human history across all cultures, it’s the question of the origin of all things. Why is there a Universe? How come we exist in it to be able to ask this question? Across millennia, different cultures offered mythic narratives to address the mystery of existence. But with the development of modern science, the focus has shifted to a more quantitative approach — a scientific narrative of the origin and history of the Universe, the focus of modern cosmology.It all started in 1915 when Albert Einstein proposed his new theory of gravity, the general theory of relativity. Einstein’s brilliant innovation was to treat gravity not as a force acting at a distance, as did Newton, but as the curvature of space due to the presence of mass. Thus, according to Einstein, the orbital motions of celestial objects are caused by the spatial curvature of their surroundings. A way of visualizing this is by throwing marbles across a mattress. If no weight bends the mattress, the marbles will move along straight lines. But if you place a heavy lead ball on the mattress, the marbles that roll nearby will trace curved paths. If you practice your throws, you can get the marbles to circle the lead ball, somewhat like planets circle the Sun. Einstein’s theory allows physicists to calculate the geometry of the bent space around an object. He demonstrated his theory’s validity by both showing how Mercury’s orbit wobbles about the Sun (the precession of Mercury’s perihelium) and by computing how starlight gets bent as it travels near the Sun.
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S41Starts With A Bang podcast #104 - The magnetized galactic center  Have you ever wondered what the full story with the galactic center is? Sure, we have stars, gas, and an all-important supermassive black hole, but for hundreds of light-years around the center, there’s a remarkable story going on that’s traced out in a variety of elements at a whole slew of different temperatures. Imprinted in that material is a remarkable set of features that reveals the magnetic fields generated in our galaxy’s core, with some of them spanning much greater distances than have ever been seen elsewhere.It’s a testament to the power of multiwavelength astronomy, and in particular to the long wavelengths like the far-infrared, the microwave, and the radio portions of the spectrum that shows us these features of the Universe that simply can’t be revealed in any other way. To help bring this story to all of you, I’m so pleased to welcome Dr. Natalie Butterfield, a scientist at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), to join us on this episode of the Starts With A Bang podcast.
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S42GOP to SBA: Stop Promoting Voting  Republican Congressional leaders on Thursday slammed the Small Business Administration over its first-of-a-kind agreement to promote civic engagement in Michigan, calling out the the agency for alleged electioneering. House Small Business chair Roger Williams (R-TX) blasted the agency over the voter registration agreement with the Michigan Department of State, which could allow Michigan businesses to register employees to vote [RIGHT?] during SBA outreach events. The agreement would also direct Michigan state department to create a voter registration webpage, which the SBA will then advertise on its own channels to help people sign up to vote.
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S43Google Parent Alphabet Weighs Offer For HubSpot, Sources Say  (Reuters) - Google parent Alphabet has been talking to its advisers about the possibility of making an offer for HubSpot, an online marketing software company with a market value of $35 billion, people familiar with the matter said.If Alphabet moves ahead with a bid, it would be a rare example of a major technology company attempting a mega deal amid heightened regulatory scrutiny of the sector under U.S. President Joe Biden's administration.
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S44AI Seen Cutting Worker Numbers, Survey By Staffing Company Adecco Shows  ZURICH (Reuters) - Â Artificial intelligence will lead to many companies employing fewer people in the next five years, staffing provider Adecco Group said on Friday, in a new survey highlighting the upheaval AI will bring to the workplace.Tech companies, including global giants Google and Microsoft, have embarked on a wave of layoffs in recent months as they shift their focus to systems like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's chatbot Gemini.
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S45US FDA Issues Warning Letters to Retailers Against Underage Sale of ZYN Nicotine Pouches  (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Thursday said it had issued warning letters and filed civil money penalty complaints against retailers engaged in underage sale of various flavors of ZYN nicotine pouches.The FDA said it had issued 119 warning letters to brick-and-mortar retailers and had filed 41 civil money penalty complaints seeking more than $55,000 in total for underage sales of flavored ZYN nicotine pouches, including espressino, black cherry, lemon spritz, and cucumber lime.
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S46Meta Pushes Back on US FTC's Bid to Amend 2020 Privacy Settlement  (Reuters) -Â Meta Platforms has rebuffed an attempt by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to amend a 2020 privacy settlement, noting that it had voluntarily disclosed two technical errors related to its Messenger Kids app to the agency.In March, a U.S. appeals court ruled that the Instagram-owner cannot stop the FTC from reopening a probe into its Facebook unit's privacy practices for now, despite Meta's objections that it already paid a $5 billion fine and agreed to a range of safeguards.
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S47Fed's Barkin: Confidence to Cut Rates Requires Breadth of Inflation to Narrow  RICHMOND, Virginia (Reuters) - Â Richmond Federal Reserve President Thomas Barkin said he is focused intently on the persistent breadth of inflation across goods and services, and feels slower price increases need to be more widespread before he is comfortable cutting interest rates.Barkin, who is a voter this year on Fed interest rate policy, described in an interview on Thursday with Reuters how he will be parsing upcoming data as the central bank approaches a critical choice on starting rate cuts. Investors expect that first reduction may come in June, but it could get pushed to later in the year if key reports in the weeks ahead show insufficient progress on taming inflation.
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S48U.S. Justice Department to Meet Boeing Fatal Crash Victims' Lawyers (Reuters) -Â The U.S. Justice Department next week will meet with lawyers for families of victims of two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019, as the government decides whether to move ahead with a criminal case, according to correspondence Reuters reviewed."As we have ... done previously, we think it would be productive to hold a lawyers-only meeting approximately two weeks before the conferral," said Glenn Leon, the Justice Department's fraud section chief, in an email to lawyers for victims' families Reuters reviewed.
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S49NYC Earthquake: How Brands From Casper to Skittles Reacted on Social Media A 4.8 magnitude earthquake rocked New York City and the surrounding region for around 30 seconds on April 5, interrupting meetings and distracting workers just hours before their weekend break. Brands were quick to hop online to verify that yes, that was an earthquake. Companies such as TGI Fridays and Skittles posted on X (Twitter) with pithy jokes like "I'll take my Skittles shaken today, I guess." Casper, the DTC mattress brand, posted a slideshow of three tweet-like text posts of earthquake jokes on Instagram:
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S50Is Your Business Prepared for This Year's Hurricane Season?  On Thursday, Colorado State University researchers released their annual hurricane forecast for 2024, which anticipates a total of 23 storms. Among these, 11 are expected to intensify into hurricanes that could have a significant impact on local business owners.According to the CSU researchers, there is a "well above-average probability" that these 11 hurricanes will make landfall along the U.S. coastline and in the Caribbean during the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. Florida, Texas, and Louisiana have the highest probability of being hit by a major hurricane.Â
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