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S2Tarigrades, or Water Bears, May Help Unlock Slowing the Aging Process in Humans - Discover Magazine (No paywall)Tardigrades are the undisputed masters of survival. Bake them at 300 degrees Fahrenheit, freeze them to within a degree of absolute zero, deprive them of water and oxygen, subject them to the vacuum of space they will still survive. And now scientists have begun to show how we can harness their legendary resilience to advance human medicine. Inspired by the feats of these near-microscopic animals (also known as water bears), researchers at the University of Wyoming wanted to see what would happen if they introduced a particular tardigrade protein into isolated human cells. Incredibly, even in such a foreign context, it had the same effect: The cells slowed their molecular processes, resulting in a sort of suspended animation that protected them from harm.
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S3The Historical Roots of Cosmetic Surgery Begin with Reconstructive Surgery - Discover Magazine (No paywall)The earliest reconstructive plastic surgery techniques include procedures to repair the broken and amputated noses of criminals in 1200 B.C., says Donald B. Yoo, medical director at HALO Beverly Hills Plastic Surgery & MedSpa. India and Roman descriptions use primitive suture materials for repairs of the lips and ears from the 1st century B.C.Plastic surgery became more important with the advent of trench warfare in World War I, when bullets could strike people in the face in the trenches. Antell says that some of the earliest plastic surgeons (including himself) have both a dental and medical degree because they had to be very adept at rebuilding the mouth and teeth.
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S6What is Parkinson's disease--and why is it so hard to diagnose? - National Geographic (No paywall)In 1817, British surgeon James Parkinson penned a case study of a malady he called the shaking palsya progressive affliction that left older adults with tremors, weakness, and the inability to control their body. Stumped by the disorders cause, the physician closed his paper with a plea to his fellow scientists to follow up on his work.More than two centuries later, the condition now known as Parkinsons disease is the second most common neurological disorder of its kind. But though it affects up to a million Americans and is projected to balloon even further in the coming years, the cure Parkinson once imagined remains nearly as elusive as it was in the 19th century.
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S7These ants are the first known animals to use moonlight to find their way home - National Geographic (No paywall)While human eyes are attuned to certain wavelengths of light emitted by the sun and stars or reflected from the moon, the top-most part of bull ants eyes can see a pattern in the sky thats invisible to uspolarized light. This pattern shines through even when celestial bodies are obscured by clouds.By manipulating the pattern with a filter placed over the ants as they returned to nests in the wild, the scientists were able to show that the insects were following that signal and making course-corrections based on it in real-time, as opposed to navigating based on a memory of its position.
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S8The Dangerous Push for Israeli-Saudi Normalization - Foreign Affairs (No paywall)During his first three years in office, U.S. President Joe Biden based his Middle East strategy on a single, straightforward project: normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Such a deal, Washington thought, would stabilize the tumultuous region and constrain an increasingly emboldened Iran. The United States would then be free to shift its resources away from the Middle East and toward Asia and Europe. The Arab world might even become part of an ambitious Eurasian trade corridor connecting the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea, an enterprise that could compete with Chinas Belt and Road Initiative.By the fall of 2023, U.S. officials seemed close to brokering an agreement. Saudi Arabia indicated it was ready to normalize ties with Israel if, in exchange, Washington would strike a security pact with Riyadh. The United States was prepared to grant the Saudis their wish. Although the pact would theoretically deepen the United States regional commitments, American officials hoped that, thanks to a newly strong Israeli-Saudi relationship, Saudi Arabia would rarely need U.S. military assistance.
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S9Debt Is Dragging Down the Developing World - Foreign Affairs (No paywall)The violent protests that began in Nairobi in June appeared to erupt suddenly, a direct response to governments proposal of a contentious finance bill the month before. But the economic crisis that motivated the legislation, which would have raised taxes in part to pay off the countrys debt, has been years in the making. Kenyas debt burden has forced its leaders to face a series of impossible choices. Last year, they slashed the federal budget, including health spending, to provide funds for debt servicing; the government also delayed salary payments to civil servants. In February, despite these measures, Nairobi had to issue an international bond at an eye-watering ten percent interest rate, compared with roughly six percent on bonds it issued in 2021, to refinance its existing debts and meet development needs. Kenya is now spending 75 percent of its tax revenue on debt service.Under pressure from the protests, President William Ruto rejected the finance bill after it received parliamentary approval. But Kenyas larger crisis remains. Like many countries in Africa and across the developing world, the economic gains Kenya made in the two decades preceding the COVID-19 pandemic are slipping away. In 38 percent of countries eligible for development assistance from the World Bank, per capita GDP is lower today than it was before the pandemica drop the bank has described as a historic reversal in development.
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S10The Modi-Putin Summit Wasn't All Bad News for Washington - Foreign Policy (No paywall)Indian officialsincluding Modifrequently describe Russia as Indias most trusted and dependable friend. Since Russias invasion of Ukraine, India has increased its imports of Russian oil and maintained defense cooperation with Moscow. Modis visit reinforced the bilateral relationship and produced several new agreements, including initiatives on science, trade, and climate change.The Biden administration signaled its concern about the trip from the start. Washington is particularly worried about New Delhis embrace of Russian President Vladimir Putin. On Mondaya day when Russia struck civilian targets, including a childrens hospital, across Kyiva beaming Modi enveloped Putin in a bear hug. The United States also fears the security implications of transferring arms and sensitive military technologies to an Indian defense sector that is still receiving Russian military equipment.
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S11Israel Renews Intense Operations in Gaza City - Foreign Policy (No paywall)The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ordered all residents of Gaza City on Wednesday to immediately evacuate the dangerous combat zone. Dropped leaflets instructed Palestinians to head south via two designated safe routes, marked as roads leading to shelters in Deir al-Balah and al-Zawaida in central Gaza, as Israel intensifies its combat operations in the north. The IDF claims that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have regrouped in Gaza City since the start of 2024.This is the first time since last October that all residents of Gazas largest city have been ordered to evacuate the area, where more than a quarter of a million people are currently living. Locals report that Israeli strikes began targeting the city before dawn on Monday and have continued with little reprieve, similar to how the IDF began its operation three months ago to retake Al-Shifa Hospital from Hamas militants.
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S12S13Novo Nordisk's weekly insulin rejected by FDA - STAT (No paywall)The agency has requests related to the manufacturing process and the use of the insulin specifically in type 1 diabetes patients, Novo said in a statement Wednesday. The company, which had submitted an application for the drug for both type 1 and type 2 patients, said it does not expect to be able to fulfill the requests this year.
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S15S16S17S18An Ingenious New French Comedy of Art and Friendship - The New Yorker (No paywall)One of the privileges and pleasures of working as a film critic is that people occasionally send me movies that arent yet available in the U.S. Some of them are very goodand a precious few are so good that, were they to be shown here, theyd rank among the years most significant releases. So it is with a new film from France, released there in June under the title Vas-Tu Renoncer? (Will You Give Up?), by the veteran independent filmmaker Pascale Bodet. Its listed on IMDb under the title of Edouard and Charles, the names of the two main characters: the painter douard Manet and the poet and critic Charles Baudelaire. The film is based on the historical friendship between the two men (whose last names are never mentioned), but is set in the present day. Bodet depicts both figures as simultaneously of their time and outside of it, and this unresolved ambiguity lends the movie a tone, combining intellectual earnestness and screwball comedy, thats as audacious and distinctive as it is deftly sustained.Vas-Tu Renoncer? confronts the eternal drama of art and commerce, aesthetics and institutions, and the slings and arrows that boldly original artists are often condemned to endure. It condenses these grand themes into a tense, pressurized, yet lyrically comical span of just seventy-one minutes. douard (Benjamin Esdraffo)socially awkward, buttoned-up, and self-doubtingis desperate to show the painting that he considers to be his masterwork, Olympia, to his brusque and bumptious friend Charles (Pierre Lon), and he embarrassingly cajoles, coaxes, and importunes Charles to come by his studio for a viewing. Charles, for his part, is desperately in need of a grant, which an arts-world bureaucrat named Jeanne Brillo (Marianne Basler) promises to help him get, and he keeps putting douard off with vague promises and brazen excuses. douard continues to work on the painting as if in the dark, unadvised by Charles, who chases the money ever more shamelessly. When it comes to light that Charles has grossly and selfishly affronted douard, a mutual friend, the connoisseur and curator dAurilleby (played by Marc Barb and based on the real-life writer Jules Barbey dAurevilly), tries to mediate between the two friends.
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S19The Controlled Normalcy of Kamala Harriss Trip to Las Vegas - The New Yorker (No paywall)It was against this backdrop that Harris travelled to Las Vegas on Tuesday for what some hoped, or at least speculated, was part of an audition tape for a candidacy of her own. Even though it was the middle of the summer, with the Democratic National Convention roughly a month away, there was a tinge of the more primal feeling of the winter primary seasonis somebody about to drop out or get pushed aside? The horse race was back on, at least for now. (In a recent CNN poll, Harris lost to Donald Trump by a smaller margin than Biden did, trailing by two points as opposed to four. Another survey saw Harris beating Trump by one point.) The Cook Political Report had just deemed Nevada, a swing state, as leaning Republican.As Democrats in Washington, D.C., held Party meetings about Biden's viability as a candidate"We are ridin' with Biden," Representative James Clyburn insisted nine times to reportersHarris touched down in Vegas. It was a hundred and fourteen degrees outside. The Clark County Republicans had planned to protest her visit to the state, but they cancelled, citing the dangers of the extreme heat. Harris dropped in on the men's Olympic basketball training camp, where Steph Curry and LeBron James were both practicing; she wished them good luck in Paris. Her motorcade continued to Resorts World, where she was the keynote speaker at a festival sponsored by the Biden campaign for the Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities. A large group of union members in matching purple shirts were first in line to enter the ballroom where the event would take place, right above a liquor-infused-ice-cream bar and a night club.
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S20S21Elon Musks Neuralink Is Ready to Implant a Second Volunteer - WIRED (No paywall)In a video update on Wednesday, Musk said the surgery is planned to take place in "the next week or so." The company is making changes to the surgical procedure and placement of the device to avoid problems that arose with its first participant, whose implant partially detached from the brain a few weeks after surgery.Neuralink is developing a brain-computer interface, or BCI, which uses a person's brain signals to control an external device. Its first product, dubbed Telepathy, aims to help paralyzed people operate a computer using just their thoughts. Musk has said Neuralink is working on a second product, called Blindsight, to provide artificial vision to people who are blind.
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S22S23She Made $10,000 a Month Defrauding Apps like Uber and Instacart. Meet the Queen of the Rideshare Mafia - WIRED (No paywall)Barbosa was just outside customs at New Yorks JFK International Airport, 5-foot-1, archetypally pretty even without her favorite Instagram filter. She was flanked by two rolling suitcases stuffed with clothes and Brazilian bikinis and not much else. The acquaintance who had invited her to come from Brazil on a tourist visa, who was going to drive her to Boston? The one who promised to help her get settled, saying that she could make good money like he did, driving for Uber and Lyft?Barbosa was stranded. She cried. She took stock of her belongings: the suitcases, her iPhone, 117 bucks not just in her wallet, but total. She called her mom back in Brazil, but she already knew that her family couldnt pay for a ticket home. No way was she asking her friends, who had doubted this plan all along; one said she was too old to start over in a new country and, with a whiff of class judgment, insinuated that immigrating was not something their social circle really did.
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S24S25S26Designing a Successful Reskilling Program - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)In this article, written as a follow up to the award-winning Reskilling in the Age of AI, the authors report the results of a reskilling survey that they conducted with chief human resource officers from approximately 1,200 organizations in the U.S., along with business leaders from around 200. Their main finding is that reskilling is on track to becoming mainstream but that companies still have plenty of work to do. In addition to discussing the results of their survey, the authors note possible bottlenecks and significant areas for further progress and lay out key questions that companies should be asking themselves when designing and running reskilling programs.
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S27Inflation will go up regardless of who the next president is, but under Trump's tariffs it would be higher for longer, Oxford Economics says - Fortune (No paywall)Regardless of whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump wins a coveted second term, inflation will increase, predicts the research firm Oxford Economics. The question is how much. Both presidents policies are inflationary, albeit in different ways, Oxford says. And while the broad trend lines of the economy will remain the same regardless of who controls the White House or Congress, how steep they end up being could change drastically from one political reality to another.The main drivers of inflation under Trump would be his draconian immigration policies, which would shrink the available workforce; a further cut of corporate tax rates, and, most notably, an unprecedented set of tariffs on all foreign goods. Meanwhile, Oxford Economics assumes that Biden would temporarily extend the Child Tax Credit, leading to a near-term spike in inflation, as low-income families spend their tax refunds at a time when the economy requires less spending. Eventually that increase in inflation would give way to a period of stable economic growth, Yaros told Fortune.
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S28S29Sullivan & Cromwell will scan new hires for anti-Israel protest activities - Fortune (No paywall)For months, some of the most prestigious academic institutions in the U.S. have been battling with students as the war between Israel and Hamas has raged on. In the midst of campus protests, schools like Harvard, Columbia, and NYU have triedand often failedto uphold longstanding free speech traditions on one hand, while condemning antisemitism on the other.According to the Times, the policy could disqualify applicants from the hiring process even if they didnt participate in controversial chants or rally cries. Simply being present at a protest could warrant scrutiny, and an applicant found to have been at a protest may have to explain to the firm whether they did anything to moderate the behavior of those around them, according to the Times.
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S30S31Strongest "missing link" in black hole physics discovered at lastAll throughout the Universe, black holes abound in great numbers and with impressive masses. On the one hand, black holes are known to arise from the corpses of stars, and are seen with orbiting companions, often emitting X-rays, and have also been discovered by inspiraling and merging through their gravitational wave emissions. Over 100 such black holes are known, with masses between ~3 and ~200 solar masses. On the other hand, there are supermassive black holes, predominantly found at the cores of galaxies, with much greater masses: from hundreds of thousands of times the mass of our Sun up to tens of billions.But an in-between population of intermediate-mass black holes has long been suspected to exist, but has proven extremely difficult to unveil directly. One of the leading places to search for them has been near the centers of globular clusters: dense collections of anywhere between hundreds of thousands to several million stars, all bound together in a volume just a few tens of light-years in size. These globular clusters abound nearby, with more than 100 of them bound to our Milky Way and with over 1000 within the Local Group.
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S32S33What Is Psychological Safety, Really?AMY GALLO: No team is perfect. And everyone makes mistakes. But what happens on your team when a project doesnt go as planned, you miss your quarterly targets, or an idea for a new initiative just doesnt get traction? Do people try to hide their missteps? Or do they openly admit them? Does it devolve into a blame game of whos most at fault? Or do you focus on what you can learn from failure? Do people even feel comfortable taking risks in the first place?
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S34How Sodexo's CEO Manages Global Strategy Across 50 CountriesAs the chair and CEO of Sodexo, the France-based food services and facilities management company, Sophie Bellon leads one of the largest employers in the world, with front-line workers in nearly 50 countries. Managing that workforceand the supply chains that enable them to do their jobsis a complex undertaking that involves balancing both global strategy with local execution.
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S35Designing a Successful Reskilling ProgramIn this article, written as a follow up to the award-winning Reskilling in the Age of AI, the authors report the results of a reskilling survey that they conducted with chief human resource officers from approximately 1,200 organizations in the U.S., along with business leaders from around 200. Their main finding is that reskilling is on track to becoming mainstream but that companies still have plenty of work to do. In addition to discussing the results of their survey, the authors note possible bottlenecks and significant areas for further progress and lay out key questions that companies should be asking themselves when designing and running reskilling programs.
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S36S37Why Better GenAI-Driven Real Estate Decisions Stem from Better Data Sets - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM JLLIn a risk-aware sector like finance, organizations seeking AI-powered insights from their proprietary data may find that off-the-shelf large language models (LLMs) are insufficient for the task. But models trained specifically on integrated and extensive CRE data sets could provide more valuable insights. With access to CRE market information, a customized model may help financial institutions better understand industry trends, identify new opportunities, and make more-informed decisions about managing their property portfolios.
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S38S39The #1 Killer of Meetings (And What You Can Do About It)That was dreadful. Not only was I bored, everyone else was bored too. Disengaged. Im terrible at facilitating these kinds of meetings. But theyre so important. Ive got to get better at it. I need to find a better way. I wrote that in a journal entry about seven years ago. I still remember the []
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S40Why Small Companies Are Better at Customer ServiceMany of my posts have focused on big company lessons for smaller, high-growth, entrepreneurial companies. But two recent experiences reminded me that sometimes big businesses need to look more carefully at what the little guy is doing. I believe that a small business is likely to deliver better customer service than a large company because of its innate common sense and understanding of the power of empathy.
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S417 Fun Ideas to Make Your Team Meetings More EngagingWith companies likeGoogleextending working from home until as late as 2021, and others likeTwittergiving employees the option to continue working remotely indefinitely, virtual meetings are more likely to become the norm than the exception. With this new reality comes the need to start making these meetups more meaningful and fun. How can groups quickly identify easy ways to make their meetings more engaging?
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S42S43S44The Crisis Communications Playbook: What GM's Mary Barra (and Every Leader) Needs to KnowImagine that you were just named to a CEO position at a top corporation. This has to be one of the most thrilling adventures of your life. But after only a few weeks on the job, you learn that the company has been hiding information for over a decade about a product defect that cost the lives of 13 people, and you will need to recall millions of units from consumers. Mary Barra, CEO of GM, doesnt have to imagine the situation; she is living it. Most of the people who end up in top jobs have never had any training for or experience in dealing with communicating in a crisis on the big stage. I thought it might be useful to put together a playbook that every leader should have ready for when it hits the fan.
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S45Get Your Message Across to a Skeptical AudiencePersuading decision makers that your proposals and recommendations are worthy of their time and attention is a tough challenge even for the most experienced and admired experts. So what should you do if you find yourself having to persuade an audience that doesnt know about or is even skeptical of your expertise and experience?
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S46Can You Be Too Well Connected?The benefits and pitfalls of networking have never been quantified. A team of researchers examined the meeting schedules and emails of Microsoft employees to find the employees with the most and least amount of connectedness. Well-connected employees were more engaged and more likely to speak up about issues at work. But the researchers were surprised to also find several downsides of being well-connected.Well-connected employees are less likely to engage in actions that would upset their hard-earned relationships. Furthermore, they were 16% less likely to be satisfied with their work-life balance and 20% less likely to think that their workload allowed them to achieve an acceptable work-life balance. The authors suggest several steps companies can take to guard work-life balance and encourage even networked employees to blow the whistle on problems that they see in their company.
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S47Do Your Remote Employees Feel Included in Meetings?Many knowledge workers had their first stint of remote work during the pandemic quarantine this year. As we phase back in to in-person meetings and office life, what lessons from our time away from the office can we apply to our return? The author offers several successful approaches Ive seen in her work as a consultant, including tapping remote workers first, giving both introverts and extroverts space to contribute, and bringing new life to standing team meetings.
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S48Why Do So Few Women Edit Wikipedia?In 2008, a survey found that less than 13% of Wikipedia contributors worldwide were women. The free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit was outed as being mostly run by men. A follow up survey in 2011 found similar results: globally, 9% of contributors were women; in the U.S., it was 15%. Meanwhile, there appeared to be no significant gender difference in readership rates.
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S49Swimming in Data? Three Benefits of VisualizationA good sketch is better than a long speech a quote often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte The ability to visualize the implications of data is as old as humanity itself. Yet due to the vast quantities, sources, and sinks of data being pumped around our global economy at an ever increasing rate, the need []
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S50Compromise Requires Relationships (Not Friendships)To work out differences and get things done, people in organizations need to work together. To foster this kind of collaboration, managers need to develop personal relationships and some amount of trust with potential partners. Without this foundation, negotiations often become adversarial; parties question each others motives and neither side truly listens to the other.
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