December 20, 2022 - The 2023 IPO Market Is Looking Grim

S29

The 2023 IPO Market Is Looking Grim With high interest rates and the market brimming with uncertainty, it'll likely be a lackluster year for companies looking to exit. Continued here

S21

The Most Important Leadership Competencies, According to Leaders Around the World Research over the past few decades has shown us that the most important leadership qualities are centered around soft skills and emotional intelligence. But do these skills point to deeper competencies? A survey of 195 leaders from more than 30 global organizations suggests that there are five major themes of competencies that strong leaders exhibit: Continued here

�

S23

Christine vs. Work: How to Negotiate a Flexible Return to the Office The pandemic forced physical coworking spaces to temporarily shutter, and for many employees, the transition from working in an office to working from home was abrupt. However, many of us have adapted to working from home — and what may have seemed unfamiliar at first now feels more routine. Continued here

S35

Security CPR Can Save Your Business Three keystones for a practical cybersecurity foundation. Continued here

�

S70

Musk's alleged stalker identified; no evidence of ElonJet tracking, report says Last Wednesday, Elon Musk seemed absolutely convinced that an alleged “crazy stalker” used a Twitter account tracking his private jet to accurately pinpoint the Twitter CEO’s live location at a gas station outside the Los Angeles International Airport. Posting a video of the alleged stalker, claiming his son was in the car, and blaming @ElonJet for endangering his family, Musk banned the Twitter account and threatened legal action against the account’s creator, Jack Sweeney. Continued here

S33

5 Ways to Improve Your Startup Pitch Pitch your startup with confidence and clarity to stand out from the crowd. Continued here

�

S32

The Top 5 Employer-Endorsed Ways for Job Candidates to Shine Researching companies and personalizing your application seem basic, but many don't do it. Continued here

S17

Why CMOs Never Last Something is deeply amiss in the relationship between chief executives and their top marketing officers. Eighty percent of CEOs say they don’t trust or are unimpressed by their CMOs. Not surprisingly, CMOs have the briefest tenure in the C-suite. The churn can lead to serious internal business disruptions.What can be done to end this dysfunctional pattern? Kimberly A. Whitler, a former CMO who’s now an assistant professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School, and Neil Morgan, a marketing professor at Indiana University, have done extensive research into the problem. They believe that its main cause is faulty role design.To begin with, there’s no one clear, widely accepted answer to the question, What does a CMO do? The range of job duties and skills required are all over the map. Moreover, too often the expectations for CMOs’ jobs are unrealistic and not aligned with their responsibilities and performance metrics. This unhealthy dynamic sets executives up to fail.The authors outline the steps companies should take to rectify the situation. First, they need to understand the three main kinds of CMO roles: Some focus on strategy, some on commercialization, and some—which have enterprise-wide P&L responsibility—do both. It’s crucial to figure out which type of CMO a firm needs and then tailor the duties and success metrics accordingly.CMO candidates and recruiters also have a part to play in seeing that jobs are clearly defined and that new hires are good matches. The authors include checklists of questions that all parties involved in the process should be sure to ask before making any decisions. Continued here

�

S34

6 Lessons From Women-Led Businesses Changing the World Top female business leaders from WPO share their most valuable learnings. Continued here

S13

The Strategic Secret of Private Equity The huge sums that private equity firms make on their investments evoke admiration and envy. Typically, these returns are attributed to the firms’ aggressive use of debt, concentration on cash flow and margins, freedom from public company regulations, and hefty incentives for operating managers. But the fundamental reason for private equity’s success is the strategy of buying to sell—one rarely employed by public companies, which, in pursuit of synergies, usually buy to keep. Continued here

�

S20

How Timeboxing Works and Why It Will Make You More Productive In a recent survey of 100 productivity hacks, timeboxing — migrating to-do lists into calendars — was ranked the most useful. Timeboxing can give you a much greater sense of control over your workday. You decide what to do and when to do it, block out all distractions for that timeboxed period, and get it done. The benefits of calendarized timeboxing are many, varied, and highly impactful. The practice improves how we feel (control), how much we achieve as individuals (personal productivity), and how much we achieve in the teams we work in (enhanced collaboration). This may be the single most important skill or practice you can possibly develop as a modern professional, as it buys you so much time to accomplish anything else. It’s also straightforwardly applied and at no cost. Box some time to implement a version of this that works for you. Continued here

S14

The Five Stages of Small Business Growth Categorizing the problems and growth patterns of small businesses in a systematic way that is useful to entrepreneurs seems at first glance a hopeless task. Small businesses vary widely in size and capacity for growth. They are characterized by independence of action, differing organizational structures, and varied management styles. Continued here

�

S24

3 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting My First Job Almost two decades ago, I entered the workforce with what I was taught was the recipe for success: a college degree, hard work, and relentless focus. What I wasn’t taught was the fact that there is so much more to success than these ingredients. Like any exceptional dish, I had to add spices, herbs, and condiments to make my contributions to stand out. Continued here

S42

Wildlife BBC Travel’s latest wildlife stories from around the world Continued here

�

S44

The lost medieval sword fighting tricks no one can decode One day, in the mid-12th Century, an unremarkable monk sat down in St Edmund's Abbey, Suffolk, and set pen to parchment. He was chronicling the scandalous life of a man he had met some years earlier – the story, he hoped, was not too improper. The anonymous monk's interest had begun at another abbey, in Reading, where he had been visiting. Within the imposing building's rough flint walls, in the shadows of a virtually unlit room, he met the resident brothers. Among them was one who immediately stuck out as unusual – a monk who, though now dressed in the same hooded robes as the rest, had once led a very different life. In hushed tones, this man explained how he had become a monk by accident.  Continued here

S28

This Message From Salesforce’s CEO Is Only 108 Words, But It Teaches a Masterclass in How to Give Constructive Criticism In a company-wide Slack message, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff provides a real-life example of how to give criticism in a way that's both constructive and emotionally intelligent. Continued here

S27

High-Performing CEOs and Founders on the Best Practices for Building, Growing and Running a Business They learned their lesson. Now you can learn from them. Continued here

S69

Not sporty enough, not efficient enough--the 2023 Lexus RX 500h F Sport Something about automotive body styles brings out emotions in people. Witness the once-mighty station wagon's fall from grace; at one time, it was the family supercar, now it's mostly just adored by people on the Internet (who never actually buy them) and reviled by everyone else. The wagon gave way to the minivan, which in turn lost favor to the SUV, but the real winner over the past few decades has been the crossover. Something of an "I know it when I see it" category, the crossover is more car-like than an SUV, and more SUV-like than a car and subject to plenty of arguments over what does and doesn't quite fit in that four-wheeled pigeonhole. Continued here

S11

The Founder's Dilemma The author’s studies indicate that a founder who gives up more equity to attract cofounders, new hires, and investors builds a more valuable company than one who parts with less equity. More often than not, however, those superior returns come from replacing the founder with a professional CEO more experienced with the needs of a growing company. This fundamental tension requires founders to make “rich” versus “king” trade-offs to maximize either their wealth or their control over the company. Continued here

S41

Video Quick Take: Emerson's Lal Karsanbhai on Agile Leadership - SPONSOR CONTENT FROM EMERSON Welcome to the HBR Video Quick Take. I’m Todd Pruzan, senior editor for research and special projects at Harvard Business Review. Emerson, the global technology, software, and automation leader is not only accustomed to change; the business thrives on it. The company’s recent strategic moves, ambitious commitments, and leadership evolution all demonstrate its focus on advancing progress. Continued here

S15

How Venture Capital Works The popular mythology surrounding the U.S. venture-capital industry derives from a previous era. Venture capitalists who nurtured the computer industry in its infancy were legendary both for their risk-taking and for their hands-on operating experience. But today things are different, and separating the myths from the realities is crucial to understanding this important piece of the U.S. economy. Continued here

S30

How to Fortify Your Top of Funnel Sales Strategy Is your sales funnel designed to hook your audience in under 5 seconds? With modern attention spans, it needs to be. Learn how to ensure success. Continued here

S12

The Overlooked Key to a Successful Scale-Up This stage isn’t part of traditional organizational theory, which holds that businesses begin in exploration mode (testing out hypotheses about how they’ll solve problems and learning whether people will pay for their solutions) and then move into exploitation mode (as growth slows and they fine-tune their business models to sharpen their advantage). But between those two well-known stages is the crucial extrapolation stage. During it, a company both explores and exploits. And most significantly, it works to ensure that each new customer brings in additional revenue while incurring only marginal cost—the secret to lasting, profitable growth. Continued here

S26

Looking For a Job Abroad? Here's What You Should Know. Whatever your reasons, working abroad can be a great way to open your mind and accelerate your career growth. However, this significant career move will not be an easy journey. It’s crucial to be thoughtful about your decision and to prepare before making that leap by building a local network, learning about the country’s culture, and finding the right organization for your needs. Continued here

S56

The Internet Is at Risk of Driving Women Away Unless we act, 2023 will be the year that women leave the internet. Women already face enormous risks online. A Pew Research report of a US survey shows that one-third of young women report having been sexually harassed online and that women report being more upset by these experiences and seeing it as a bigger problem than men do. A UNESCO study of journalists found that 73 percent of women surveyed had experienced online violence, and 20 percent said that they had experienced physical attacks or had been abused offline in connection to online abuse. In response, women journalists reported self-censoring, withdrawing from online interactions, and avoiding interacting with their audiences. Filipino-American journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa wrote about the online abuse that she faces, at one point receiving an average of over 90 hate messages per hour. After she investigated wrote about campaign-finance irregularities around then-presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, Brazilian journalist Patrícia Campos Mello’s employer received hundreds of thousands of harassing WhatsApp messages and threats of physical confrontation—so much so that her employer, the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, was forced to hire a bodyguard for her. She also had to cancel all events for a month. What both women shared was that they dared question power while being visible on social media. It isn’t just famous or highly visible women who are facing enough online abuse to consider leaving social media. A YouGov poll commissioned by the dating app Bumble showed that almost half of women age 18 to 24 received unsolicited sexual images within the past year. UK Member of Parliament Alex Davies-Jones put the phrase “dick pic” into the historical record during the debate on the UK Online Safety Bill when she asked a male fellow MP if he had ever received one. It is not, as she said, a rhetorical question for most women.    Continued here

S18

How to Kill Creativity To foster an innovative workplace, you need to pay attention to employees’ expertise, creative-thinking skills, and motivation. Of these three, employees’ motivation—specifically, their intrinsic motivation, or passion for a certain kind of challenge—is the most potent lever a manager can use to boost creativity and his company’s future success. Continued here

S3

How to Build Wealth When You Don't Come from Money The first step to attaining wealth — at least for people who are not born into it — is much more personal than building millionaire habits or investing wisely. Such approaches often fail to address the systemic and mental barriers faced by many of the marginalized groups who grew up without access to wealth. The author argues that changing your mindset, or building a mindset conducive to wealth, is the real first step. Continued here

S16

The Questions Every Entrepreneur Must Answer Diversify your product line. Stick to your knitting. Hire a professional manager. Watch fixed costs. Those are some of the suggestions that entrepreneurs sort through as they try to get their ventures off the ground. Why all the conflicting advice? Because in a young company, all decisions are up for grabs. Continued here

S8

Why Start-ups Fail Based on interviews and surveys with hundreds of founders and investors and scores of accounts of entrepreneurial setbacks, his findings buck the conventional wisdom that the cause of start-up failure is either the founding team or the business idea. The author found six patterns that doomed ventures. Two were especially common: Continued here

S43

How the UAE got a spacecraft to Mars - on the first try On 19 July 2020, a few months into a global pandemic that had paralysed the world, a rocket shot into the sky from the Japanese space launch site on its southerly island of Tanegashima. Aboard was a small spacecraft, a little over 2m (6.5ft) wide and weighing about as much as a Ford Focus car. Onboard it were a host of cameras and spectrometers vital for its impending mission, one which would take it more than 493 million km (306 million miles) from Earth. Perched on top of its gold body was a large black radio antenna, which would beam its data across the vast, cold abyss of space to controllers sitting at their monitors. Continued here

S40

How to Create a Worker Safety Hotline That Really Works A worker hotline that is well designed and utilized by employees not only helps managers find harm; it also can allow managers to move from a reactive to a proactive approach to workplace abuse. The authors’ research on dairy farms in Vermont offers four simple recommendations to help increase utilization: Continued here

S61

The Mystery of Nevada's Ancient Reptilian Boneyard Berlin, Nevada, is a treasure chest for paleontologists. Just down the road from now-abandoned gold and silver mines, a rockbound collection of bones hints at an even richer past. The Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park is teeming with dozens of fossils of ancient marine reptiles. That bone bed is so abundant and weird that researchers have been scratching their heads over it for decades. "There are sites with way more dense occurrences of ichthyosaur skeletons, including places in Chile and Germany," says Nick Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. "But this place, Berlin-Ichthyosaur in eastern Nevada, has really escaped explanation for a long time." In one particular quarry, at least seven individuals from the genus Shonisaurus—a bloated, bus-sized dolphin with four limb-like flippers—lay essentially stacked atop one another. Continued here

S37

When a Tough Question Puts You on the Spot Amidst the economic and global uncertainty that surrounds us, handling tough questions is an ongoing part of a leader’s job. In this piece, the author outlines strategies to answer difficult questions so that you can maintain the trust of your clients and colleagues, keep your relationships intact, and weather any storm. Continued here

S39

What Companies Need to Know Before Investing in AI Different forms of AI can improve performance through prediction; automation of routines; and identification of images, keywords, and patterns in voice and text. However, organizations often struggle with knowing where investments in AI will really pay off. Companies need to 1) ask whether they really need AI, 2) pick a task to start with, not a project 3) identify what data and complimentary systems it will require, 4) adjust expectations around accuracy accordingly, 5) not rush to deploy it enterprise-wide, 6) ask whether they have the necessary skills to maintain an AI, and 7) decide whether the returns will outweigh the costs. Continued here

S65

How the brain diminishes certain memories during sleep One of sleep’s many important functions is memory consolidation. While we sleep, newly formed memories are replayed and transferred into long-term storage. But new research shows that memory replay during sleep can also trigger the forgetting of similar memories.  Memory is associative in nature. It relies heavily on learning relationships between otherwise unrelated objects and events. It is also reconstructive: When we recollect an event, we stitch together fragments of memories rather than recalling the event as a whole. Often, therefore, related memories may “overlap,” with the same or similar fragments being used to compose them. Continued here

S9

The Ambidextrous Organization This mental balancing act is one of the toughest of all managerial challenges—it requires executives to explore new opportunities even as they work diligently to exploit existing capabilities—and it’s no surprise that few companies do it well. But as every businessperson knows, there are companies that do. What’s their secret? Continued here

S49

These Male Wasps Use Genital Spines to Scare Off Attackers In one species of mason wasp, “pseudo stings” on males’ genitals let them mimic females and scare predators Males of one wasp species use their genitals as an antipredator defense, mimicking females and jabbing potential attackers with spines mounted on their reproductive organs, a new study has found. Continued here

S62

Hubble lives! See its top 10 images from 2022 Launched back in 1990, Hubble’s world-class capabilities still generate cutting-edge scientific results. 10.) Galaxy-quasar hybrid GNz7q. This bright, dusty object showcases a cosmic transformation in action. Continued here

S48

Keep Looking Up As a dismal year on Earth draws to a close, milestones in space exploration offer much for the whole world to celebrate The close of a calendar year is a chance to reflect on the relentless procession of time into the present and any new beginnings the future holds. Humans are enamored with the end of the year—not only for nostalgia’s sake but also for the cognitive clarity it offers amid so much uncertainty. Continued here

S7

SPACs: What You Need to Know Special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, have been around in various forms for decades, but during the past two years they’ve taken off in the United States. In 2019, 59 were created, with $13 billion invested; in 2020, 247 were created, with $80 billion invested; and in the first quarter of 2021 alone, 295 were created, with $96 billion invested. In 2020, SPACs accounted for more than 50% of new publicly listed U.S. companies. Continued here

S25

Work Speak: The Right Way to Network Networking used to make me cringe. It felt dirty and didn’t come naturally to me. I would enter a networking event and find a seat in the very last row, preferably the corner with the least amount of light. I would much rather spend lunch breaks cleaning up my inbox than meeting new people. I joined virtual group meetings a minute late so I didn’t have to indulge in small talk. Continued here

S58

Reach Easy With the 13 Best Messenger and Crossbody Bags 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 If I’m out and about and I don’t have a bag slung across my body, I feel naked and unprepared. It’s like venturing into a dungeon without any health potions. What if I need ChapStick? Did I bring ChapStick? How can I fit my phone, keys, and face mask all in the truncated pockets of my jeans? Where do I put the cool rock I just found? Extra storage capacity is essential to my everyday carry, and being able to swing the bag around to the front and grab anything I need is crucial.  Continued here

S45

As Covid-19 surges in China, sick Foxconn workers are still making iPhones Foxconn’s megaplant in Zhengzhou, the world’s biggest iPhone factory, is grappling with a fresh Covid-19 outbreak after the Chinese government abruptly lifted its zero-Covid restrictions. With the company under pressure to catch up on much-delayed iPhone 14 Pro production, some employees have been told to continue assembling the smartphones even after becoming ill. Employees on production lines are provided with N95 masks to prevent the spread of Covid-19. But workers say that it’s still easy to catch the disease inside dorm rooms, where eight people sleep together in close proximity. Seven workers confirmed to Rest of World that they, along with many of their roommates, contracted the virus after joining the factory this month. Three said they were asked to stay on the job despite showing symptoms.  Continued here

S36

How Solopreneurs Can Build a Strong Online Presence Follow these easy steps to draw in more customers and compete with the bigger players. Continued here

S19

How to Keep Working When You're Just Not Feeling It Motivating yourself is one of the main things that sets high achievers apart, and it’s hard. How do you keep pushing onward when your heart isn’t in it? In her research, Fishbach has identified some simple tactics: Set goals that are intrinsically rewarding, and make them very specific. If a task isn’t satisfying, focus on aspects of it that are or combine it with pleasant activities. Reward yourself in the right way for getting things done. To avoid slumps, break objectives into subgoals; look at how much you’ve accomplished until you’re halfway there; and then count down what you have left to do. And use social influence: Let high performers inspire you, boost your get-up-and-go by giving advice, and keep the people you want to succeed for front of mind. Continued here

S59

The Everrati GT40 Is an Electrified Version of Ford's Iconic Racing Car Old cars, no matter which way you look at it, pollute far more than new ones on the move—especially more than EVs with zero tailpipe emissions. The world is going electric, and being seen to be pro-ICE can get you funny looks in certain circles.  Conceivably there’s a future where driving ICE (internal combustion engine) cars will be immensely difficult, not just financially, but socially too. However, the thing is, classic cars remain sought-after things. The shapes, the feel, the drive—it all adds up to a visercal experience that millions enjoy or lust after.  Continued here

S47

RSV Is Surging. Progress in Preventing It Looks Promising RSV is the number one reason children are admitted to hospitals. Progress in developing preventatives raises hopes of changing that Every autumn, doctors’ offices, hospitals and clinics fill with babies and toddlers struggling to breathe. Families are frightened and bewildered as young children cough, wheeze and become increasingly congested, dehydrated and short of breath. Those of us who care for children know this means the annual epidemic caused by respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, has started. Continued here

S50

Arctic Lakes Are Disappearing Fast, and Scientists Are Just Figuring Out Why In an ominous sign of global warming, melting permafrost underneath Arctic lakes lets them drain into the ground Research sometimes proves, with data, what we more or less already know. Exercise is good for you, and polluted air isn’t. Still, sometimes our intuitions are incorrect, and scientific findings surprise researchers, along with the rest of us. A recent example is the phenomenon of disappearing lakes in the Arctic tundra. Continued here

S67

Lasers capture aerosol plumes ejected by toilets with every flush Every time you flush a toilet, it releases plumes of tiny water droplets into the air around you. These droplets, called aerosol plumes, can spread pathogens from human waste and expose people in public restrooms to contagious diseases.  Scientific understanding of the spread of aerosol plumes – and public awareness of their existence – has been hampered by the fact that they are normally invisible. My colleagues Aaron True, Karl Linden, Mark Hernandez, Lars Larson and Anna Pauls and I were able to use high-power lasers to illuminate these plumes, enabling us to image and measure the location and motion of spreading aerosol plumes from flushing commercial toilets in vivid detail. Continued here

S51

Why It's So Hard to Recycle Plastic Here’s how companies and other organizations are trying to make plastics more sustainable There’s a soap dish for sale at a beauty products shop in São Paulo, Brazil. An off-white disc with a smooth, rounded shape like a river stone, it is just one of millions of plastic soap dishes on offer in shops around the world. But, although most plastics are made from petroleum, some of the plastic in this dish started out as methane generated by a water-treatment facility in California. Continued here

S66

Circadian rhythms: What time is your brain at its cognitive peak? A new study conducted over five years at a large public university in the United Kingdom finds that college students perform best on exams taken in the early afternoon, likely because the time slot lines up best with their circadian rhythm, the biological process governing sleep-wake cycles. The authors of the analysis, Alessio Gaggero and Denni Tommasi, both economists respectively based out of the University of Granada in Spain and the University of Bologna in Italy, examined 503,358 exam scores from over 50,000 anonymous undergraduate and graduate students between the 2014-15 and 2018-19 academic years. Continued here

S31

3 Strategies for Winning New Customers Find unrelieved customer pain, aim at a large market, build a better solution. Continued here

S55

Are insect brains the secret to great AI? Are insects the key to brain-inspired computing? Neuroscientist Frances S. Chance thinks so. In this buzzy talk, she shares examples of the incredible capabilities of insects -- like the dragonfly's deadly accurate hunting skills and the African dung beetle's superstrength -- and shows how untangling the mysterious web of neurons in their tiny brains could lead to breakthroughs in computers, AI and more. Continued here

S38

2023 Will Test Companies' Commitment to Social Responsibility The months and year ahead will test whether American companies will uphold commitments to ESG and corporate social responsibility as we near a recession. The authors, members of three organizations that work with leaders engaged in social impact across sectors and regions, caution against stepping back from these commitments and and cutting costs. They provide four reasons why upholding ESG and CSR are critical to long-term success: 1) Your workforce is making employment decisions based on corporate purpose commitments and actions; 2) your customers make purchase decisions based on corporate purpose commitments and actions; 3) your investors make decisions based on corporate purpose and action; and 4) your company’s reputation is intrinsically linked to corporate purpose and actions. Continued here

S60

How to Order Your Free At-Home Covid-19 Tests It took nearly two years of living through the Covid-19 pandemic to get our first round of free at-home rapid tests. Now, we're on our third. Every household in the United States—including US territories and military addresses—can request four more free tests. Orders start shipping this week. If you need a test right now, we have a guide to finding the best at-home tests and have outlined the process of ordering and taking tests below. Also, see our guides to the best N95 masks and other reusable masks we like. You can follow our Covid-19 coverage here. Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you'd like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day. Continued here

S68

FTC brings a $520 million hammer down on Epic Games for Fortnite complaints Epic Games will pay over half a billion dollars to settle two Federal Trade Commission complaints regarding the company's use of children's private information and its use of "dark patterns" to encourage accidental in-game purchases. The penalties—which the FTC says are some of the largest imposed in the organization's history—also come with imposed changes to the way Epic handles purchases and player interactions in its online games. Continued here

S64

The mathematical explanation for "spontaneous synchronization" This article was first published on Big Think in September 2022. It was updated in December 2022. Birds do it. Bugs do it. Even audiences at a play do it. The cells in your body are doing it right now, and it’s pretty amazing.  Continued here

S57

Empathy in the Age of AI If you think your dog loves you, you’re a fool. If you feel a kinship with a tree, you’re a hippie. And if you over-empathize with a wild animal, you must be wearing cheetah prints and a flower crown, because you are Carole Baskin. The imperative to be on guard against anthropomorphism infuses almost every aspect of modern life. Yet many people would struggle to articulate why, exactly, attributing human qualities to nonhuman entities—from gorillas to large language models—is so woefully naive.  Anti-anthropomorphism has deep roots. In the 20th century, scientists sallied forth on a quixotic quest to see animals objectively. To do it, they tried to strip away human assumptions about biology, social structure, animal behavior, and more. Eventually, this ideal became a dominant ideology, says ecologist Carl Safina. At one point, anthropomorphism was called the “worst of ethological sins” and a danger to the animal world. But the next generation of field ecologists, including Jane Goodall and Frans De Waal, pushed back, infusing their observation with empathy. “I don’t know people anymore who study animals and insist that anthropomorphism is out of bounds,” says ecologist Carl Safina. Continued here

S46

6 Times Quantum Physics Blew Our Minds in 2022 Quantum telepathy, laser-based time crystals, a glow from empty space and an “unreal” universe—these are the most awesome (and awfully hard to understand) results from the subatomic realm we encountered in 2022 The quantum world defies common sense at every turn. Shaped across hundreds of thousands of years by biological evolution, our modern human brain struggles to comprehend things outside our familiar naturalistic context. Understanding a predator chasing prey across a grassy plain is easy; understanding most anything occurring at subatomic scales may require years of intense scholarship and oodles of gnarly math. It’s no surprise, then, that every year physicists deliver mind-boggling new ideas and discoveries harvested from reality’s deep underpinnings, well beyond the frontiers of our perception. Here, Scientific American highlights some of our favorites from 2022. Continued here

S52

U.S. Energy Emissions Set to Rise for Second Straight Year Increasing demand for natural gas and oil has offset emissions reductions associated with coal and pushed U.S. energy emissions higher for a second consecutive year U.S. carbon dioxide emissions are set to rise for the second consecutive year, underscoring the challenges facing President Joe Biden as his administration works to curb the country’s output of greenhouse gases. Continued here

S63

How to stop toxic self-talk, explained in 6 minutes Your inner voice or mental chatter isn’t always nice or helpful. When we turn our attention inward, we tend to focus on problems rather than solutions. This causes us to worry, ruminate, and catastrophize, which traps us in a negative thought cycle.  Continued here

S10

Managers and Leaders: Are They Different? Managers and leaders are two very different types of people. Managers’ goals arise out of necessities rather than desires; they excel at defusing conflicts between individuals or departments, placating all sides while ensuring that an organization’s day-to-day business gets done. Leaders, on the other hand, adopt personal, active attitudes toward goals. They look for the opportunities and rewards that lie around the corner, inspiring subordinates and firing up the creative process with their own energy. Their relationships with employees and coworkers are intense, and their working environment is often chaotic. Continued here

S53

AI Platforms like ChatGPT Are Easy to Use but Also Potentially Dangerous Systems like ChatGPT are enormously entertaining and even mind-bogglingly human-sounding, but they are also unreliable and could create an avalanche of misinformation Something incredible is happening in artificial intelligence right now—but it’s not entirely good. Everybody is talking about systems like ChatGPT, which generates text that seems remarkably human. This makes it fun to play with, but there is a dark side, too. Because they are so good at imitating human styles, there is risk that such chatbots could be used to mass-produce misinformation. Continued here

S54

China COVID Wave Could Kill One Million People, Models Predict Boosting vaccination rates, continuing widespread mask use and reimposing some restrictions on movement could reduce the number of deaths Up to one million people in China could die from COVID-19 over the next few months, according to some of the first projections since the government lifted many of its strict ‘zero-COVID-19’ measures. Continued here