7 New Books That Will Help You Reinvent Your Life, Recommended by Adam Grant

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7 New Books That Will Help You Reinvent Your Life, Recommended by Adam Grant The very best books are those that help you see your life in fresh ways. Adam Grant rounds up some contenders. Continued here

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Beware Of This Trap As You Map Out Your Goals And Growth Plans Look out for compliments that are not aligned with who you are or where you want to go Continued here

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Think Long Term to Improve the Bottom Line Piyush Gupta on the business case for valuing societal purpose over personal ambition. Continued here

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1 Simple Reframe Helps You Rethink a Dumb Decision, Science Shows You're smarter than you think. Continued here

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How Small Businesses Can Win Big During Super Bowl LVII You don't have to drop $7 million on an ad to make hay of the big game. See some off-beat ways smaller businesses canscore some attention. Continued here

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An 80-Year Harvard Study Found the Secret to a Happy Life. These 9 Simple Habits Make It Happen "One thing continuously demonstrates its broad and enduring importance ..." Continued here

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How Emotionally Intelligent People Use the 'Done List' to Feel More Productive, Fulfilled, and Accomplished A simple perspective shift that might just turn struggle into satisfaction. Continued here

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The PR Power of Fessing Up Companies are adopting a new communications strategy: publicly disclosing unflattering information about lapses and misdeeds. New research indicates that doing so is effective for building trust. Many leaders are spending an increasingly large share of their time worrying about their organization’s reputation. Companies are under closer scrutiny than ever from employees, shareholders, unions, the media, and activists, who are ready to pass judgment on corporate actions and impacts, especially regarding societal and environmental issues. This has left some leaders struggling to figure out how to build and maintain a positive reputation in the eyes of their key stakeholders. In a world where social media in particular rapidly fuels narratives that organizations can’t control, it can be hard to believe that at one time, businesses could simply release some positive information about themselves to distract stakeholders from negative news. This was once a standard public relations practice, and even fairly recently some companies have continued to make pro-social claims in response to unflattering revelations about their business activities. Continued here

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Can Gen Z make friends in the pandemic era? Nayomi Mbunga always wanted to live in a big city, so she was thrilled when she landed a tech job in Toronto. The 24-year-old grew up in Ireland, and was eager to “meet people of all walks of life”, she says. But that was a challenge when she started her job in January 2022, as she spent the first few months working remotely and isolating because of Covid-19 cases.  Mbunga liked her colleagues, but didn’t have much of a chance to get to know them without meeting in person, which they weren’t able to do for months into her starting the job. She got along well with her roommates, one of whom she knew from back home, but she wanted to expand her social circle. Continued here

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How country-pop superstar Shania Twain became a Gen Z icon It's not unheard of for so-called "heritage acts" to enjoy an unexpected revival: Fleetwood Mac's Dreams went viral on TikTok in 2020, and Kate Bush returned to the charts last year after Running Up That Hill was featured in the TV series Stranger Things. But Shania Twain, an artist who could easily have stayed tied to the 1990s – the decade in which she became a global superstar by making ​​an unprecedented crossover from country to pop – has been embraced as a Gen Z icon without an obvious "eureka!" moment. With her sixth album Queen of Me being released today, ​​her timeless music is not only a firm favourite of younger listeners but hailed as an influence by a swathe of current hitmakers. Among them are US indie-pop group Muna, who have said that Twain's country-pop style directly informed Kind of Girl, a wistful, guitar-led highlight from their eponymous 2022 album. "It's easy to take for granted the idea of country-pop as a widely beloved style of music," the trio collectively tells BBC Culture. "And [it's] easier for many to forget that this particular genre wouldn't likely exist in the way it does now without the deeply profound influence of Shania Twain and her many, many hits. She is the template." This is far from an exaggeration: in 2021, Taylor Swift credited Twain in a TikTok for setting the blueprint for her own country-to-pop crossover. The Canadian singer-songwriter has also been celebrated by Harry Styles, who invited her to duet with him at last year's Coachella music festival. "I think both in music and fashion, [my] main influence was probably Shania Twain. I think she's amazing," Styles said in 2017. And acclaimed Japanese-British singer-songwriter Rina Sawayama has called Twain "the queen of country-pop"; Sawayama even begins her country-influenced 2022 single This Hell by quoting Twain's rallying cry from Man! I Feel Like a Woman!: "Let's go girls!" Continued here

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The unruly ancient rituals still practised today Once a year, on the island of South Ronaldsay, off the north coast of Scotland, the community prepares for two traditional events: The Festival of the Horse and the Boys' Ploughing Match. Families reach into cupboards and bring down the richly decorated costumes that the town's girls will wear in a parade through the streets. Passed down through generations, the dresses mimic the trappings of the majestic Clydesdale working horse, with embellished yokes and harnesses, and little woollen fetlocks. Meanwhile, the boys gather on the broad scope of Sands o' Wright beach where, using exquisitely-made miniature ploughs, they carefully draw "furrows" in the sand. The lad with the most finely tilled furrow wins. The Festival of the Horse dates back to the 1800s, when other Orkney villages performed their own versions; today, South Ronaldsay is the last. It is anything but fading: "When I went there, what I found incredibly moving was that the entire community was involved," says Simon Costin, director of the Museum of British Folklore. "The grandparents, the parents, everyone would be rallying the boys on from the side." The costumes, old but constantly evolving, are another sign of this resilience. "Over the years, they get increasingly embellished –  with pieces of jewellery, Christmas decorations, bells; anything that catches the light." says Costin. "They become emblems of how the community chooses to express itself." Continued here

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Nigeria and Ghana are prone to devastating floods - they could achieve a lot by working together Many countries in Africa suffer from disasters annually, but the adverse effects are grossly under-reported compared with coverage of more developed nations. The impact of these disasters is also more severe in developing countries because they have less capacity to adapt and cope. Continued here

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Why is Canada snubbing internationally trained doctors during a health-care crisis? Internationally trained doctors are being sidelined in Canada while six million Canadians do not have a family doctor. Internationally trained physicians, commonly known as international medical graduates, are medical professionals who completed their education outside of Canada or the United States. They are a diverse group of practitioners trained in various specialties. Continued here

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Electric vehicles are now trending. But where can we charge them? Sunil Johal is currently a member of the Expert Panel on Portable Benefits providing advice to the Ontario government on the design and implementation of a portable benefits program and a member of the Expert Panel providing the City of Toronto with advice on its Long Term Financial Plan. Canada is on the road to transformation in mobility. The federal government recently announced its zero-emission vehicle sales target, which requires all light-duty passenger vehicles sold by 2035 to be zero-emission. Continued here

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Drinking and suicide: How alcohol use increases risks, and what can be done about it Nearly half of us know someone who ended their life by suicide. Worldwide, 700,000 people die by suicide each year. In Canada, 12 people die by suicide each day — and another 200 attempt suicide. While the prevalence and destructiveness of suicide is clear, much less is known about why people die by suicide. Alcohol recently became a hot topic when the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction updated Canada’s low-risk alcohol drinking guidelines. The difference in what they considered low-risk consumption in 2018 and 2022 was drastic: from the previous two to three drinks per day, they now suggest two to three drinks per week. Moreover, the entire emphasis of the guidelines changed from how to drink safely, to the message that drinking is never completely safe. Continued here

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The science of holding your breath: How could Kate Winslet stay underwater for over 7 minutes in Avatar 2? Kate Winslet reportedly held her breath for seven minutes and 15 seconds on set for Avatar: The Way of Water. Some of the movie’s scenes were filmed underwater. It’s a remarkable feat; anyone (including professional freedivers) would acknowledge that a breath hold over seven minutes is extremely difficult. Most professional freedivers must train for years before reaching a number like that — many never achieve it. Winslet apparently trained only for a few weeks. Continued here

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Diversity and moderation over tradition - why Democrats moved South Carolina to the start of the 2024 presidential campaign The Democratic National Committee approved a proposal on Feb. 4, 2023, that puts South Carolina first on the party’s presidential nominating calendar, upending 50 years of tradition. For the first time, voters of color, moderates, hourly workers – and Southerners – will have the first say in choosing the party’s nominee. President Biden weighed in on changes to the nominating calendar in a Dec. 1, 2022, letter to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee . He wrote that early nominating states should reflect the diversity of the party and nation and that time-consuming caucuses, like those held in Iowa, should no longer be a part of the process because they disadvantage hourly workers and others who can’t take the required time away from work. Continued here

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Tourists in our own reality: Susan Sontag's Photography at 50 This year marks 50 years since Susan Sontag’s essay Photography was published in the New York Review of Books. Slightly edited and renamed In Plato’s Cave, it would become the first essay in her collection On Photography, which has never been out of print. The breadth of Photography is immense. It ranges over artistic, commercial, photojournalistic, and popular uses of photography; and it discusses the photograph’s role in both sensitising and desensitising us to other people’s suffering – a theme Sontag reconsidered 30 years later in her final book, Regarding the Pain of Others. Continued here

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What's the safest seat on a plane? We asked an aviation expert When booking a flight, do you ever think about which seat will protect you the most in an emergency? Probably not. Most people book seats for comfort, such as leg room, or convenience, such as easy access to toilets. Frequent flyers (this author included) might book their seat as close as possible to the front so they can disembark more quickly. Continued here

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You can't fix school refusal with 'tough love' but these steps might help PhD Candidate, School of Educational Psychology and Counselling, Monash University Christine Grové is a fellow of the College of Educational and Developmental Psychologists, a member of the Australian Psychological Society, and the American Psychological Association, and a member of The United Nations Association of Australia Academic Network. Continued here

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200 experts dissected the Black Summer bushfires in unprecedented detail. Here are 6 lessons to heed The Black Summer bushfires of 2019-20 were cataclysmic: a landmark in Australia’s environmental history. They burnt more than 10 million hectares, mostly forests in southeast Australia. Many of our most distinctive, ancient and vulnerable species were worst affected. A new book released today, titled Australia’s Megafires, synthesises the extent of the losses. The work involved contributions from more than 200 scientists and experts. It provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of how the fires affected biodiversity and Indigenous cultural values, and how nature has recovered. Continued here

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How to save $4 billion a year: reform a fuel tax credit scheme with no real rationale Grattan Institute began with contributions to its endowment of $15 million from each of the Federal and Victorian Governments. In order to safeguard its independence, Grattan Institute’s board controls this endowment. The funds are invested and Grattan uses the income to pursue its activities. Revising the generous fuel tax credits given to businesses should be a priority for the Albanese government, because keeping them would conflict with two other pressing priorities: reducing carbon emissions and repairing the budget. Continued here

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How much has support for the Voice fallen? It depends on how you ask Support for embedding an Indigenous Voice to parliament in the Constitution has fallen. The polls provide good evidence once you work out how to find it. However, the voters who have shifted are not Labor voters or those who vote for the Greens – they are Coalition voters. Continued here

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Albanese's Newspoll ratings drop but Labor maintains big lead Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne A federal Newspoll, conducted February 1-4 from a sample of 1,512, gave Labor a 55-45 lead, unchanged on the previous Newspoll in early December. Primary votes were 38% Labor (down one), 34% Coalition (down one), 11% Greens (steady), 6% One Nation (steady) and 11% for all Others (up two). Continued here

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Northanger Abbey has attracted a trigger warning for 'toxic relationships' but I love its gentle romance. Bookworm Mr Tilney is my favourite Austen hero “The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.” So says Henry Tilney to Catherine Morland, the hero and heroine respectively of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (completed 1803, published posthumously in 1817). It is a neat summation of the entire attitude of the book. Continued here

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Scams, deepfake porn and romance bots: advanced AI is exciting, but incredibly dangerous in criminals' hands The generative AI industry will be worth about A$22 trillion by 2030, according to the CSIRO. These systems – of which ChatGPT is currently the best known – can write essays and code, generate music and artwork, and have entire conversations. But what happens when they’re turned to illegal uses? Last week, the streaming community was rocked by a headline that links back to the misuse of generative AI. Popular Twitch streamer Atrioc issued an apology video, teary eyed, after being caught viewing pornography with the superimposed faces of other women streamers. Continued here

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Did China's balloon violate international law? While the answers to these questions may not be immediately known, one thing is clear: the incursion of the Chinese balloon tested the bounds of international law. This incident has also added another layer of complexity to the already strained relations between the US and China. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned visit to Beijing has been postponed. And China has reacted to the shooting down of the balloon with diplomatic fury. Continued here

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With the training to diagnose, test, prescribe and discharge, nurse practitioners could help rescue rural health It can be tough to access front-line health care outside the cities and suburbs. For the seven million Australians living in rural communities there are significant challenges in accessing health care due to serious workforce shortages, geographic isolation and socioeconomic disadvantage. This results in rural people having poorer quality of life, and long-term poor health outcomes. Primary health care is the entry point into the health system. It includes care delivered in community settings such as general practice, health centres and allied health practices. It can be delivered via telehealth where face-to-face services are unavailable. Continued here

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View from The Hill: Lidia Thorpe quits Greens, going to crossbench to promote 'Blak Sovereign Movement' Victorian Indigenous Senator Lidia Thorpe has defected from the Greens to sit on the crossbench, declaring she wants to fully represent the “Blak Sovereign Movement” in parliament. The announcement by Thorpe, who has been the party’s spokesperson on First Nations issues, follows her sustained criticism and questioning of the Voice referendum. It also comes before the Greens this week formally announce their position on the Voice. Continued here

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Men often don't see mess like women do - changing that could make housework more equal Picture a professional couple, Jack and Jill, who are committed to a relationship in which household responsibilities are shared evenly. Now imagine Jack and Jill differ in how they see their home. When Jill enters the messy kitchen, she sees the dishes as to be washed and the recycling bin as to be taken out. Jack, of course, sees there are dishes in the sink and the recycling bin is full. But these perceptions do not “tug” at him – he does not see the mess as tasks that must be done. Continued here

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Scientists ignored animal clitorises for centuries - now we're discovering just how varied they are The sometimes astonishing sex lives of animals are well known, especially the huge range in penis structures, evolved to increase the number of offspring that males father. For example, ducks have corkscrew-shaped penises, and echidnas (also known as spiny anteaters) have a four-headed penis. But what about female genitalia? For hundreds of years, scientists assumed most animals didn’t have a clitoris. But new discoveries are revealing how female sex organs are just as interesting and varied as male ones. Continued here

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Beyond spy balloons: here are 7 kinds of intelligence spies want, and how they get it The news of a so-called “Chinese spy balloon” being shot down over the US has reignited interest in how nation-states spy on one another. And that makes sense. The significance of intelligence can’t be overstated. Nations make important political, economic and military decisions based on it. Continued here

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The UK government may have rejected menopause protections - but workplaces are more supportive than ever The UK government recently decided against providing special protection for menopausal employees under the Equality Act (2010), rejecting recommendations from the UK parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee. Nine characteristics are already protected from discrimination by UK law: sex, age, disability, marital status, pregnancy and maternity, gender reassignment, religion or belief, marriage and civil partnership, and sexual orientation. Continued here

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Lidia Thorpe's defection from the Greens will make passing legislation harder for Labor Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Senator Lidia Thorpe announced on Monday that she would be leaving the Greens. Thorpe had split with the Greens over the Indigenous Voice to parliament, which she opposes. Continued here

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Watching Putin Burn with Pussy Riot The other day, Nadya Tolokonnikova, a founder of the feminist art collective Pussy Riot—known for festive candy-colored balaclavas and for spirited opposition to Vladimir Putin—was in L.A. for a performance and the opening of the group’s first solo show, at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery. Tolokonnikova, who is, according to Putin’s Justice Ministry, a foreign agent, strives for geo-anonymity. She said, “I cannot tell you any details of my recent moves around the territory of the Earth. I cannot confirm or deny that I left Russia, that I reside in Europe or the U.S. or Australia. Nothing about my physical residence can be public.” For the performance, in a parking lot a few blocks from the gallery, Tolokonnikova wore a white balaclava inked with hearts, knee-high platform boots, fishnets, and a black-and-white minidress. Many in the crowd also wore balaclavas. It was hard to be sure who anyone was. There were Ukrainians and Russian dissidents and curators from major museums. “I just noticed Kesha walk by,” Tolokonnikova’s publicist alerted a disoriented bystander. The artist Shepard Fairey had made a print for the event; it was turned into an N.F.T., sales of which would benefit the fighters on the front line in Ukraine. He was there somewhere, supposedly, wearing black? Continued here

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5 Years Ago, a Failed Netflix Sequel Killed a Bizarre Sci-Fi Franchise In 2018, Netflix announced a surprise release of The Cloverfield Paradox and killed a franchise. The Cloverfield franchise was always a strange one. The first film essentially began as a proof of concept, a vehicle through which J.J. Abrams could test out a new monster and a new marketing technique for the viral age. There’s a reason the 2008 Cloverfield, directed by Matt Reeves, is remembered more for its viral marketing campaign — which used alternate reality games and Myspace to build hype — than for the film itself, though its found-footage approach did make a mark. But it was the surprise critical success of the second film, Dan Trachtenberg’s 10 Cloverfield Lane, that turned Cloverfield into a proper blockbuster franchise… until the next movie. Continued here

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You Need to Watch Peter Jackson's Most Ambitious Epic on HBO Max ASAP Everyone knows that Bilbo Baggins slept during a huge battle. But in 2014, what Peter Jackson presupposed is... maybe he didn’t? Bilbo Baggins is taking a nap. In The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien infamously renders Bilbo unconscious, having him miss out on the Battle of the Five Armies. The decision to have Bilbo sleep through the climax has been long-debated by Middle-earth fans. But, in 2014, Peter Jackson’s final Hobbit film — The Battle of the Five Armies — set out to “correct” this plot point, with mixed results. Continued here

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60 Years Ago, Astronomers Cracked the Mystery of the Brightest Objects in the Universe Understanding the cosmos, and searching for new flavors of celestial objects is quite a bit like feeling around in the dark. The reaches of space are dark, though fortunately, visible light makes up only a tiny handful of the clues that can be weaved together into a story that cohesively describes the universe. Discovered 60 years ago, today, quasars — that is quasi-stellar [star-like] objects — have a misleading name. While these objects do shine like a star from our undiscerning eyes on Earth, they are the brightest objects in the universe, and actually make up their own category of celestial phenomena. They’re actually the ultra-bright centers of galaxies powered by powerful supermassive black holes. Continued here

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Everything You Need to Know About DCU's 'Batman: The Brave and the Bold' movie James Gunn’s favorite Robin is “a little son of a ... !” The ambitious co-head of DC Studios sat down in front of a camera this past week and summarized his plan for the new DCU universe. “Chapter 1: Gods and Monsters” includes a Swamp Thing horror flick, a True Detective take on Green Lantern, an Amanda Waller-centric show, a group of outcast Nazi-fighters, and a new Batman and Robin feature film, The Brave and The Bold. “This is the introduction of the DCU’s Batman. It is not Robert Pattinson. It is not Ben Affleck,” Gunn said. “[T]his is a story of Damian Wayne, who is Batman’s actual son, who we didn’t know existed for the first eight to 10 years of his life. He was raised as a little murderer and assassin.” Continued here

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'Rick and Morty' Season 7 Needs to Steal the Best 'Doctor Who' Trick For nearly a decade, so much of Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty has been co-creator Justin Roiland screaming at himself. Roiland has voiced both the gravelly alcoholic grandpa Rick and his grandson Morty’s insecure, high-pitched stammer, not to mention a slew of other miscellaneous roles. But on January 24, Adult Swim announced via Twitter that it had “ended its association with Justin Roiland” following the filing of domestic abuse charges against him. While it’s unclear how much of Roiland’s voice may remain in the upcoming Season 7, the series has already been renewed through Season 10. Sooner or later, the Rick and Morty production team will have to recast his roles. So they might as well take a page out of Doctor Who’s book and make it an interesting way to revitalize the series. Continued here

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Depression Meals: These 4 Easy Dinner Options Are Backed by Science The food we eat when we need a quick meal is often food that’s worse for our mental health. But the contrary may also be true. Depression is a complex condition that can affect many facets of one’s life. For some people, it can manifest as a lack of interest in eating. They may feel unmotivated to eat or even overwhelmed by the idea of cooking themselves a meal. Continued here

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The Plague Is Still Here -- And It Could Infect Your Cat It may come as a surprise, but the plague that caused the infamous Black Death centuries ago is still alive and kicking. The CDC states that roughly seven human plague cases are reported annually. The disease typically spreads when a flea infected with the bacteria Yersinia pestis bites a human, or when the human comes in contact with a rodent — like a prairie dog — sickened with the disease, though it can also transmit through respiratory droplets. Continued here

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You Need to Play the Most Underrated Retro Sports Game on Nintendo Switch ASAP Anyone who ever got into a fight in high school remembers how consuming the feeling could be. It doesn’t matter if somebody is picking a fight with you, you’re picking a fight with someone else, or two people just decided they don’t like each other that particular day — the feeling is intense. Most people, if they’re lucky, can move on from the raging hormones and constant drama. But the heat of the moment stayed with Yoshihisa Kishimoto, the director of the 1987 mega-hit Double Dragon. Continued here

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Can cosmology untangle the universe's most elusive mysteries? From the Big Bang to dark energy, knowledge of the cosmos has sped up in the past century — but big questions linger. “The first thing we know about the universe is that it’s really, really big,” says cosmologist Michael Turner, who has been contemplating this reality for more than four decades now. “And because the universe is so big,” he says, “it’s often beyond the reach of our instruments, and of our ideas.” Continued here

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45 of the cleverest things for your home most added to Amazon wish lists If you are anything like me, you have an Amazon wishlist for everything in your life. I have one for organizational stuff, one for clothes, and of course, one for my home. These longed-for products include decorative items, useful home improvement tools, and genius hacks for common household problems. Here are 45 of the cleverest things for your home most added to Amazon wish lists. From pantry containers to moth-proof attic bags for storing season clothes, I’ve included plenty of organizational solutions. It’s the uniqueness of these products and their often very specific uses that have landed them among other viral, wished-for Amazon products. I’ve included a lazy Susan organizer, one designed specifically for tea bags, a solution for keeping your T-shirts neat, as well as a vertical solution that ensures you never again lose container lids. It’s no wonder why so many people have saved these products. Continued here

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'The Last of Us' Episode 4's Ending Sets Up a Tragic Subplot -- With a Twist The Last of Us was the talk of the internet last week when Episode 3, “Long Long Time,” introduced the world to a new and improved version of Bill and Frank and re-introduced Linda Ronstadt. But in Episode 4, the action is brought back to the classic game story with one big addition. Here’s everything you need to know about Episode 4’s Infected-less plot, including a thorough explanation of that shocking cliffhanger. Episode 4 follows Joel and Ellie on their road trip west to find Tommy in Wyoming. After a massive pileup on the highway full of abandoned vehicles from Outbreak Day, the two find their way through Kansas City, a city that once began as a QZ but FEDRA was chased out by a revolutionary leader named Kathleen and her forces. Continued here

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Why Won't My Cough Go Away? Doctors Explain Why This Symptom Lingers Your postinfectious cough will likely resolve on its own, but there are things you can do to manage the symptoms and potentially speed up the healing process. At the beginning of 2023, the flu hit me hard. Now, weeks later, I’m mostly recovered, but I still have one symptom: A lingering cough that just won’t seem to let up. Continued here

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'The Last of Us' Episode 4 Delivers the One Thing Missing From the Show The fourth episode of HBO’s The Last of Us doesn’t diverge as greatly from its video game source material as the show’s acclaimed third installment. However, that doesn’t mean The Last of Us Episode 4 is devoid of any of its own original moments or characters. As a matter of fact, the episode introduces one villain who will be entirely new to both the show’s casual viewers and video game fans alike in the form of Kathleen (Melanie Lynskey). The head of a Kansas City-based rebel force, Kathleen is a militaristic and ruthless leader who is hellbent on tracking down Henry, the man who wronged her and her family. As The Last of Us Episode 4 proves, Kathleen’s so blinded by her need for vengeance that she’s even willing to kill the only living doctor in Kansas City solely out of spite. She is, in many ways, the first human villain that The Last of Us has introduced. Continued here

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How might telepathy actually work outside the realm of sci-fi? | Aeon Essays Clear and direct telepathic communication is unlikely to be developed. But brain-to-brain links still hold great promise is professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he researches the effects of language on cognition. Continued here

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The brutality and beauty of the West African martial art of 'dambe' | Aeon Videos Dambe is an ancestral martial art practised by the Hausa ethnic group in Nigeria. During matches, competitors strike – with a single arm wrapped tightly in cloth, as well as with their legs – to knock their opponents to the ground. The lyrical short documentary Elephant Food Is for the Strongest Teeth profiles two rival fighters in Kano, Nigeria, highlighting how violence and spiritual practice exist side by side within dambe, a tradition among butchers and fishermen. Throughout the film, the threats that the sport has faced over the centuries in Kano – including, most recently, a series of deadly insurgent attacks by the militant jihadist group Boko Haram – linger in the background. Although they’re outsiders, the London-based directors Michael Kinsella Perks and Will McBain lend their portrait of dambe a sense of authenticity through intimate cinematography and an original drum-and-voice score provided by local Hausa musicians. Fifty years ago, a train collided with Jack and Betty’s car. Here’s how they remember it Continued here

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Forget regret! How to have a happy life -- according to the world's leading expert For 84 years, the Harvard Study of Adult Development has tracked the lives of hundreds of Americans. Now its director, Robert Waldinger, is explaining what it has taught him about health and fulfilment In the 1980s, when data from the world's longest-running study on happiness started to show that good relationships kept us healthier and happier, the researchers didn't really believe it. "We know there's a mind-body connection and we all pay lip service to it," says Dr Robert Waldinger, the director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has been running for 84 years. "But how could warmer relationships make it less likely that you would develop coronary artery disease or arthritis? How could relationships get into the body and affect our physiology?" Then, other studies started to show the same. "We thought: OK, we can begin to have confidence in this finding." Continued here

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The Himalayas' ancient earthquake-defying design In 1905, a deadly earthquake rocked the landscape of Himachal Pradesh, an Indian state in the western Himalayas. Sturdy-looking concrete constructions toppled like houses of cards. The only surviving structures were in towns where the residents had used an ancient, traditional Himalayan building technique known as kath kuni. On a warm Tuesday afternoon, I was headed towards one of them: Naggar Castle, which was built more than 500 years ago as the seat of the region's powerful Kullu kings, and which remained standing, unscathed, after that calamity.  Continued here

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Schmilka: The progressive German town stuck in the past The half-timbered houses, the isolated location deep in eastern Germany's forested hinterlands, the eerie rock pinnacles bounding the town on one side and the tempestuous Elbe River on the other – throw in an evil witch and Schmilka would be straight out of a 19th-Century Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Or, at least, of that age: the buildings go back around two centuries, the food and beer are prepared using techniques just as old, and I had to run up and down the town's one street (cobblestoned, of course) to find a wi-fi signal. Talk about a time warp. "Schmilka used to be a holiday village 200 years ago," said Andrea Bigge, a local art historian. It is again, she added, but it still feels like it exists in that era.  Continued here

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Spain's ingenious fairy-tale houses Deep in Spain's north-western corner, the windswept Ancares mountains are dotted with centuries-old houses that look straight out of a fairy tale – or the Asterix and Obelix comic-book series – but that are cleverly suited to the harsh realities of this remote region. Known as pallozas, the round huts are made of stone and topped with a teardrop-shaped roof of rye straw. There are more than 200 scattered among Galicia's and Castile-León's rural villages, including Piornedo, Balouta, O Cebreiro and Balboa. Many of these homes were built 250 years ago, though their architectural roots stretch back millennia – some historians contend that pallozas are pre-Roman, an evolution of Celtic and Iron Age constructions. Continued here

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The Maine lake full of sunken steamboats "A hundred years ago there were dozens of these things cruising around here," said a man who'd suddenly appeared next to me at the dock as I watched the approaching steamboat. He'd startled me out of my reverie, my gaze caught somewhere between the shimmer that dances across Moosehead Lake and the seaplanes taking off toward Mount Katahdin. I grew up in the US state of Maine at a smaller lake not far from here, and I spent many summers taking day trips to Moosehead Lake with my family. But this was the first time I boarded the historical Steamboat Katahdin, the last of a once-numerous fleet that used to ferry hordes of well-dressed elites from nearby train depots to the area's luxury resorts for their summer holidays.  Continued here

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Tuscany's mysterious 'cave roads' Wildflowers grazed my legs as I hiked down from the volcanic-rock hilltop fortress of Pitigliano into the Tuscan valley below. At the base of the hill, I crossed a burbling stream and followed a winding trail as it inclined. All of a sudden, I was walled in. Huge blocks of tuff, a porous rock made from volcanic ash, rose as high as 25m on either side of the trench I found myself in. I felt spooked – and I'm not the only one who's felt that way in vie cave like this. These subterranean trails have been linked with lore of devils and deities for centuries.  Continued here

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Meta's Gruesome Content Broke Him. Now He Wants It to Pay In 2019, Daniel Motaung moved from South Africa to Nairobi, Kenya, for a job at an outsourcing company called Sama. He had been hired for his Zulu language skills, but was unsure of exactly the kind of work he'd be performing. It was only after he started working, he claims, that Motaung discovered he would be spending eight hours or more a day looking at some of the most hideous content on the internet—beheadings, child abuse, suicides—as an outsourced content moderator for Meta. Motaung alleges that he was paid as low as $2.20 an hour to view graphic content that left him with PTSD. He describes it as "emotionally and mentally devastating": "I went in OK and went out not OK," Motaung said in a statement shared by the Real Facebook Oversight Board, a group of independent civil rights advocates and experts. "It changed the person I was." Motaung began to push to form a union that would allow the moderators to advocate for better pay and more support for their taxing work. Just six months into the job, he was fired. So he decided to sue his former employer and Meta. Continued here

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Apple's HomePod Can Hear You. You Might Not Want To Hear It If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED Apple cares a lot about music. Steve Jobs loved it so much that he invented the iPod and iTunes to let us bring all of it everywhere, and personally owned multi-thousand-dollar Finnish speakers in his sparsely-decorated living room. To this day, Apple Music is one of the best-sounding streaming services you can subscribe to thanks to lossless audio support. The headphones it makes, both itself and via Beats, are largely fantastic. Continued here

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Raycast Is the Launcher App Apple Wishes It Made There's very little you can do using your mouse or touchpad that you can't do faster using your keyboard. There are exceptions—graphic design comes to mind—but most of the time this rule holds true. For example: launching a Mac application that's not in your dock. You can open the Applications folder in Finder or Launchpad, then scroll until you find the app you want. Or you can open Spotlight using Command+Spacebar, type the first few letters of the app in question, then hit Enter. The mouse method takes around 30 seconds; the keyboard method takes less than two. This is the kind of trick that, once you learn it, you wonder how you lived without. Continued here

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The Best Budget Phone Plans to Ditch the Big Carriers Subscribing to a cellular plan from the Big Three providers—Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T—is akin to owning a high-performance sports car. If you never take it onto a twisty road to unwind it, then what's the point of saddling yourself with such a high monthly payment? The Big Three have piled on the luxuries over the years: 1080p video streaming, generous hot spot plans, complimentary streaming subscriptions, and sky-high data-throttling caps. Yet if you rarely use them, you can save a fair chunk of coin each month by switching over to one of the smaller, lesser-known cellular providers. Mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) charge cheaper prices because they lease wireless capacity from bigger companies rather than maintaining their own infrastructure.  It may not have the money for splashy advertising campaigns, but an MVNO can offer many core features that were once restricted to the big players. Nowadays, it's reasonable to expect all the best cheap phone plans to include 5G network access with the option to use your phone as a Wi-Fi hot spot. These are our favorites.  All prices are given for one line per plan. Typically, the cost per line goes down the more of them you have on your plan, up to a limit. Continued here

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Radical idea: Redraw the U.S. map as a nation of city-states Excerpted from Unequal Cities: Overcoming Anti-Urban Bias to Reduce Inequality in the United States Copyright (c) 2023 Columbia University Press. Used by arrangement with the Publisher. All rights reserved. Some blue-sky thinkers are questioning the relationship of cities and existing political boundaries. The modern U.S. economy is really made up of metropolitan regions, not states whose boundaries are arbitrary compared to local economies. A 2009 study identified eleven “megaregions” in the United States with 31 percent of all U.S. counties but 74 percent of the nation’s population and an estimated 80 percent of employment growth by the year 2025. Others have called for a restoration of cities’ annexing powers or greater metropolitan consolidation; reducing suburbs’ power over zoning, housing, and de facto segregated school systems; and limiting poor urban residents’ access to suburban-based jobs. Continued here

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How a device transmits radio waves with almost no power A new ultra-low-power method of communication at first glance seems to violate the laws of physics. It is possible to wirelessly transmit information simply by opening and closing a switch that connects a resistor to an antenna. No need to send power to the antenna. Our system, combined with techniques for harvesting energy from the environment, could lead to all manner of devices that transmit data, including tiny sensors and implanted medical devices, without needing batteries or other power sources. These include sensors for smart agriculture, electronics implanted in the body that never need battery changes, better contactless credit cards and maybe even new ways for satellites to communicate.  Continued here

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Psychology studies that go viral are likelier to be bogus At the start of the 21st century, psychology was starting to get a little out of hand. Studies conducted on small groups of college undergraduates were growing more commonplace and increasingly being used to explain just about every aspect of human behavior. Their findings filtered into talks by motivational speakers, bland self-help books, and poppy magazine articles, turning lots of people into well-informed (or so they thought) armchair psychologists. But in the early 2010s, the bubble burst. When scientists attempted to replicate prior research, performing the experiments again with rigorous methods and new subjects, they were broadly unsuccessful. In about half of the repeated experiments, the flashy findings disappeared. Even apparently established phenomena like social priming and “power posing” were not immune from debunking. Psychology’s heyday transformed into a “replication crisis.” Continued here

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Vanpowers City Vanture e-bike review: Sleek, streamlined, and hard to define A "city" bike could mean many different things. It could be cheap, so there's less angst when it is almost inevitably stolen. It might be simple, with fewer gears and add-ons because the commutes are short and relatively flat. Or perhaps it's a lighter bike, one more easily hauled onto a curb or up a flight of apartment or office stairs. Continued here

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Proposals but no consensus on curbing water shortages in Colorado River basin In 2007, the seven states that rely on the Colorado River for water reached an agreement on a plan to minimize the water shortages plaguing the basin. Drought had gripped the region since 1999 and could soon threaten Lake Powell and Lake Mead, the largest reservoirs in the nation. Continued here

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American Christianity Is Due for a Revival Our society is secularizing, and Christianity seems to be in long-term decline. But renewal is possible. Upon joining the Presbyterian ministry, in the mid-1970s, I served in a town outside Richmond, Virginia. New church buildings were going up constantly. When I arrived in Manhattan in the late ’80s, however, I saw a startling sight. There on the corner of Sixth Avenue and West 20th Street was a beautiful Gothic Revival brownstone built in 1844 that had once been the Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion. Now it was the Limelight, an epicenter of the downtown club scene. Thousands of people a night showed up for drugs and sex and the possibility of close encounters with the famous of the cultural avant garde. It was a vivid symbol of a culture that had rejected Christianity. Continued here

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The High Tension and Pure Camp of Jurassic Park Jane Yong Kim’s culture picks include the dinosaur blockbuster and a wild-swimming travelogue. This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Continued here

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The Institutional Arsonist Turns on His Own Party Donald Trump threatens to use his core skills—peddling conspiracy theories, spreading lies, sowing distrust—against the GOP. It’s begun to dawn on Republicans that they face a potentially catastrophic political problem: Donald Trump may lose the GOP presidential primary and, out of spite, wreck Republican prospects in 2024. Continued here

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"SNL" Went Off the Rails--In the Best Way Bowen Yang didn’t break first, but he was the cast member least able to handle the cascade of giggles that caused yesterday’s final Saturday Night Live sketch of the night to lose total control. Partway through “Lisa from Temecula,” a bit about a woman named Lisa (played by Ego Nwodim) aggressively carving up her “extra-extra-well-done” steak, Yang cracked up, throwing down his prop fork. The host, Pedro Pascal, was already chortling through his lines, as were Nwodim, Devon Walker, and Punkie Johnson. Pascal never finished his last sentence before the segment ended. It was the kind of sketch I replayed as soon as I could, not because it was overwhelmingly funny but because the cast’s fumbles and the audience’s hollering felt brilliantly spontaneous. I noticed Molly Kearney apparently fighting the urge to break by staring intensely at nothing; Nwodim stepping onto Pascal’s leg while sawing her meat after she accidentally knocked over her chair; Yang helplessly signaling the crew for the sketch to wrap up. “Lisa from Temecula” follows in the footsteps of “Debbie Downer” and “Girlfriends Game Night,” sketches that hinged on a simple premise—the former, a visit to Disney World with a naysayer; the latter, a hangout that goes wrong when a woman brings her husband. In such sketches, the jokes aren’t the most compelling part. The cast and audience’s pure, chaotic enjoyment of them is. Continued here

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4 Things to Do Before a Tough Conversation Difficult conversations are, well, difficult. And we all crave tactical advice about how to handle them, what to say, and what not to. But the primary predictor of success in a crucial conversation has less to do with how you use your mouth, and much more to do with what you do before you open it. There are several things you can do to prepare for any type of tricky conversation, whether it’s delivering tough feedback or negotiating a new role. First, connect with your real motives. Ask yourself: What do I really want for me? For the other person? For the relationship? For other stakeholders? Then, recognize and challenge the stories you tell yourself. Turn yourself from a victim to an actor. Turn the other person from a villain to a human. Also, gather the facts about the situation and don’t by sharing your conclusion. Share the facts and premises that led you to your conclusion. Lay out your data. Explain out the logic you used to arrive where you did. Lastly, be curious. Think through your position enough to have confidence that it has merit. But also muster enough humility to be interested in any facts or logic that might improve your conclusion. His work performance had made the conclusion inescapable for years, but he was so darned nice and likeable that I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Not only did I like him, I also knew his income was crucial to his family. Furthermore, over the nine years he worked for me, his income had grown to the point that he would find it difficult to get comparable compensation. I hated the thought of the hardship that letting him go might cause. And yet Randy (which is not his real name) had shown himself to be entirely incompetent at managing people and projects. He completed projects based on whoever was nagging him the most not on the importance to the business of the commitments he’d made. You knew he would agree to anything, but you never knew if you’d actually get it. His team was in a constant state of whiplash as his panicked phone calls would often reset their entire agenda. Continued here