The city with gold in its sewage lines

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The city with gold in its sewage lines "He burned the sari and from it, handed us a thin slice of pure silver," said my mother, describing a moment that had taken place 30 years ago at her home in the city of Firozabad. The man in her story was no magician, but an extractor. Like many similar artisans in my mother's hometown, he'd go door to door collecting old saris to mine them for their precious metals.  Until the 1990s, saris were often threaded with pure silver and gold, and I remember digging into my mother's wardrobe, searching for her glittery outfits like treasure. But as she told me, the extractors were looking for something even more valuable than clothing – they were looking for trash, and a kind of trash specific to this city. Continued here

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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

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Kodak's Downfall Wasn't About Technology A generation ago, a “Kodak moment” meant something that was worth saving and savoring. Today, the term increasingly serves as a corporate bogeyman that warns executives of the need to stand up and respond when disruptive developments encroach on their market. Unfortunately, as time marches on the subtleties of what actually happened to Eastman Kodak are being forgotten, leading executives to draw the wrong conclusions from its struggles. Continued here

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Innovation Isn't All Fun and Games -- Creativity Needs Discipline Innovative cultures are generally depicted as pretty fun. They’re characterized by a tolerance for failure and a willingness to experiment. They’re seen as being psychologically safe, highly collaborative, and nonhierarchical. And research suggests that these behaviors translate into better innovative performance. But despite the fact that innovative cultures are desirable, and that most leaders claim to understand what they entail, they are hard to create and sustain. Continued here

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Make Learning a Part of Your Daily Routine In our increasingly “squiggly” careers, where people change roles more frequently and fluidly and develop in different directions, the ability to unlearn, learn, and relearn is vital for long-term success. It helps us increase our readiness for the opportunities that change presents and our resilience to the inevitable challenges we’ll experience along the way. Adaptive and proactive learners are highly prized assets for organizations, and investing in learning creates long-term dividends for our career development. Based on their experience designing and delivering career development training for over 50,000 people worldwide, the authors present several techniques and tools to help you make learning part of your day-to-day development.   Continued here

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How to Answer "What Are Your Salary Expectations?" There are many interview questions that inspire dread in an interviewee — from “What’s your greatest weakness?” to “Tell me about yourself.” But one in particular is especially complicated: “What are your salary expectations?” If you go too low, you might end up making less than they’re willing to pay. But if you go too high, you could price yourself out of the job. In this piece, the author offers practical strategies for how to approch this question along with sample answers to use as a guide. Continued here

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Make Learning a Part of Your Daily Routine In our increasingly “squiggly” careers, where people change roles more frequently and fluidly and develop in different directions, the ability to unlearn, learn, and relearn is vital for long-term success. It helps us increase our readiness for the opportunities that change presents and our resilience to the inevitable challenges we’ll experience along the way. Adaptive and proactive learners are highly prized assets for organizations, and investing in learning creates long-term dividends for our career development. Based on their experience designing and delivering career development training for over 50,000 people worldwide, the authors present several techniques and tools to help you make learning part of your day-to-day development.   Continued here

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A Beginner's Guide to Networking I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with networking. When I was in college, networking seemed transactional. I disliked the idea of building relationships for my own personal gain and small talk with strangers triggered my social anxiety. As I’ve grown in my career, however, I’ve learned that networking doesn’t have to be opportunistic. Continued here

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How I Navigated My First Pregnancy as a Rising Leader Pregnant women are often denied promotions, and seen as liabilities or burdens, based on their decision to have a baby. All this, despite the fact that women make up 50% of the workforce, and up to 85% will become mothers during their careers. If you’re a rising leader in your organization who is also expecting, how can you navigate your career while taking care of yourself and your soon-to-be-born baby? Continued here

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What's the Difference Between a Mentor and a Sponsor? Mentorship and sponsorship are powerful tools for personal success and building stronger workforces. Although they are related to one another and share some similarities, they are not, as people sometimes assume, the same thing. In reality, sponsorship can grow from a productive mentor-mentee relationship. Continued here

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5 Ways to Get More Checkout Counter Impulse Sales By understanding customer behavior and what drives impulse sales, you can change your counter area to draw in more. Continued here

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TikTok Is Facing a Ban, Again. 3 Ways to Prepare for Life After Memes Washington may be threatening this key business driver, but you can create digital marketing that replicates it. Continued here

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Empower Employees Through a Culture of Ownership: A Guide for Leaders You can improve productivity, decrease absenteeism, and align personal and company success with this leadership change. Continued here

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What Supply, Demand, and the Fed Indicate for 2023 Don't count on real estate prices, markets, and interest rates staying the same as last year. Here are predictions for where it's headed now. Continued here

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Watch Out for Those Slings and Arrows of AI-Content Generators How Google is taking up arms against ChatGPT and other AI-powered language generators. Continued here

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The Art of Emotional Control: Strategies for a Happier, Healthier Leadership You can stress less and succeed more as a leader when you manage your emotions at work. Continued here

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How to Successfully Build and Scale Your Startup's C-Suite Don't hire for the company you have today. Hire for the company you want to build tomorrow. Continued here

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How to Use a Podcast to Build Your Brand When done right, using a podcast as a marketing tool is a win-win-win for your guests, your audience, and your company. Continued here

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3 Tips for the Job-Hopping Gen Z Careers are like relationships; know yourself, share who you are and make interviews a two-way street Continued here

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Developing the Mental Toughness That Can Defeat Doubt Multiple strategies can help you conquer your doubt before it even creeps in. Continued here

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Becoming More Collaborative -- When You Like to Be in Control When leaders who are used to calling all the shots start working with peers and stakeholders who are as successful, hungry, and confident as they are, they sometimes find themselves at odds. Their previously successful decisive, command-and-control-leadership style is no longer a viable option. And unless they pivot their decision-making style and reposition themselves as open-minded, collaborative leaders, they might be putting their future success on the line. Thus, the overconfident, decisive leader must go through a mindset change. If you’re a leader who struggles to let go of control over decision-making, the authors present several ways to make the mindset and behavioral changes required to become more collaborative. Continued here

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Research: The Pros and Cons of Soliciting Customer Reviews Many companies chase customers for online reviews by sending them solicitation emails. These emails aren’t always a good idea, according to new research. Solicitation will push your ratings from the extremes to the average. This could be good or bad. Email prompts disproportionally triggers moderate reviews as the passionate reviewers are more likely to leave reviews of their own accord. Thus, for those products with generally-high average ratings, reminders will lower the average rating. In contrast, products with generally-low average ratings might benefit from reminders. The exception is platform companies such as Amazon or Booking.com–they should always send out reminders as all that matters to them is volume. Also, the research found that companies that do solicit reviews don’t need to offer financial rewards–a reminder email is equally effective. Continued here

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Should You Share AI-Driven Customer Insights with Your Customers? AI is already helping companies understand their customers better. And many theorize that AI will soon know us better than we know ourselves. In an age where data has become commoditized, but the insights and profits from data are the rather exclusive belonging of a few enormous tech players, what better way to harness consumer trust and loyalty than by giving people back valuable insights that can turn them not just into smarter and better customers, but also more self-aware humans? After all, if our choices as consumers are becoming more and more data-driven, but that data does not actually increase consumer sophistication or rationality, that’s a huge missed opportunity. We must democratize the knowledge that algorithms have on us, at least by making sure that companies have to share the personal insights they’ve gathered with us. Importantly, brands will enhance their ethical reputation and trustworthiness if they share their insights with consumers; persuading them that there is no conflict between knowing them well, and helping them know themselves well, when done in an ethical and transparent way. 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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The ancient remains of Great Zimbabwe Walking up to the towering walls of Great Zimbabwe was a humbling experience. The closer I got, the more they dwarfed me – and yet, there was something inviting about the archaeological site. It didn't feel like an abandoned fortress or castle that one might see in Europe: Great Zimbabwe was a place where people lived and worked, a place where they came to worship – and still do. It felt alive.  Great Zimbabwe is the name of the extensive stone remains of an ancient city built between 1100 and 1450 CE near modern-day Masvingo, Zimbabwe. Believed to be the work of the Shona (who today make up the majority of Zimbabwe's population) and possibly other societies that were migrating back and forth across the area, the city was large and powerful, housing a population comparable to London at that time – somewhere around 20,000 people during its peak. Great Zimbabwe was part of a sophisticated trade network (Arab, Indian and Chinese trade goods were all found at the site), and its architectural design was astounding: made of enormous, mortarless stone walls and towers, most of which are still standing. Continued here

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Mexico's 1,500-year-old unknown pyramids From a distance, the grey volcanic rock pyramids and their encircling stonewalls looked like something that Mother Nature had wrought herself. Located in Cañada de La Virgen (The Valley of the Virgin), an area about 30 miles outside the city of San Miguel de Allende in Mexico's central highlands, the stone formations blended into the arid, desiccated landscape like a diminutive mountain range. But as I got closer to the largest of the three structures, there was no doubt it was man-made. A staircase of identical steps, etched into the hard, dark rock, had clearly required a skilled mason's hand. The other two pyramids, smaller and less well-preserved, bore a similarly unmistakable human touch. The timeworn edifices were erected by a civilisation long gone. Continued here

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Sardinia's mysterious beehive towers Expecting not to find much more than a pile of big stones, I followed the sign off the motorway into a little car park and there it was, rising from a flat, green landscape covered in little white flowers, with a few donkeys dotted around: Nuraghe Losa. From a distance, it looked like a big sandcastle with its top crumbling away, but as I walked towards it, I began to realise the colossal size of the monument in front of me. Nuraghi (the plural of nuraghe) are massive conical stone towers that pepper the landscape of the Italian island of Sardinia. Built between 1600 and 1200BCE, these mysterious Bronze Age bastions were constructed by carefully placing huge, roughly worked stones, weighing several tons each, on top of each other in a truncated formation.  Continued here

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The mysterious Viking runes found in a landlocked US state "[Farley] spent the majority of her adult life researching the stone," said Amanda Garcia, Heavener Runestone Park manager. "She travelled all around the US, went to Egypt and went to different places looking at different markings." Faith Rogers, an environmental-science intern and volunteer at the Heavener Runestone Park, led me down a cobblestone path toward one of the 55-acre woodland's biggest attractions – which is also one of the US' biggest historical mysteries. We were deep in the rolling, scrub-forest foothills of the Ouachita Mountains in far eastern Oklahoma, and we were on our way to view a slab of ancient sandstone that still has experts scratching their heads and debating about the eight symbols engraved on its face.  Continued here

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The true story behind the US' first federal monuments "Are you sitting down? I have news for you." Gwen Marable's cousin from the US state of Ohio called her at home in Maryland about 27 years ago. "We are descended from the sister of Benjamin Banneker, Jemima." The Banneker family, which numbers over 5,000 known descendants today, only learned about this astonishing connection to their ground-breaking but little-known ancestor through the wonders of DNA testing. As such, no personal stories about him, no artifacts, were handed down through the generations. Continued here

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Duna de Bolonia: The Spanish sand dune hiding Roman ruins Near the southern tip of Spain's Cádiz province, where Europe lunges into the Strait of Gibraltar as if reaching out for the North African coast, the Duna de Bolonia is one of the continent's largest sand dunes. Rising more than 30m high and sprawling 200m wide, the white mound spills into the azure sea and appears as if someone has dumped a massive pile of sugar atop the surrounding Estrecho Nature Park's protected green forest. Like all sand dunes, Bolonia is a constantly moving ecosystem that shifts with the winds. But as climate change has intensified the hurricane-force gusts coming from the east, the dune has increasingly migrated inland towards the ecologically important cork and pine forests and scrubland – revealing remnants of the many past cilivilisations who have passed through here in the process. Continued here

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Is Santa Claus buried in Ireland? Amid green hilly pastures dotted with grazing sheep and a cemetery with graves dating back to the 13th Century, the ruins of St Nicholas Church tower over the family home of Maeve and Joe O'Connell. Among those resting eternally here are early inhabitants of the estate, parishioners of the church and – according to local legend – St Nicholas of Myra. Yes, the St Nick who inspired Santa Claus. Today, the O'Connells are the owners and sole (living) human inhabitants of Jerpoint Park, a 120-acre deserted 12th-Century medieval town located 20km south of the town of Kilkenny, Ireland. Located along the crossing point of the River Nore and Little Arrigle River, the settlement (formerly called Newtown Jerpoint) is thought to have been founded by the Normans, who arrived in Ireland around 1160 CE. According to a conservation plan compiled by Ireland's Heritage Council, the town flourished into the 15th Century, with archaeological evidence revealing homes, a marketplace, a tower, a bridge, streets, a mill, a water management system and nearby Jerpoint Abbey, which still stands today. But by the 17th Century, the town's occupants were gone, likely from a combination of violent attacks and a plague. Continued here

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A secret site for the Knights Templar? In a hole in the ground beneath the Hertfordshire market town of Royston, dimly illuminated by flickering light, I was looking at a gallery of crudely carved figures, blank-faced and bearing instruments of torture. Cave manager Nicky Paton pointed them out to me one by one. "There's Saint Catherine, with her breaking wheel. She was only 18 when she was martyred," Paton said, cheerfully. "And there's Saint Lawrence. He was burnt to death on a griddle." Amid the grisly Christian scenes were Pagan images: a large carving of a horse, and a fertility symbol known as a sheela na gig, depicting a woman with exaggerated sexual organs. Another portrayed a person holding a skull in their right hand and a candle in their left, theorised to represent an initiation ceremony – a tantalising clue as to the cave's possible purpose. Adding to the carvings' creepiness was their rudimentary, almost childlike, execution. Continued here

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How climate change is reshaping the Alps It's only 6am but there are already more than a hundred people waiting for the cable car that leads from Chamonix to the top of Aiguille du Midi, in the French Alps. It is a scene that repeats here almost every day during the busy summer months. Riding in the cabin that carries passengers to the top of the 3,842m (12,604ft) peak in only 20 minutes is one of the most popular attractions in the French mountaineering capital. A rocket-shaped structure carved into the top of this majestic peak, complete with man-made tunnels and platforms, allows visitors to marvel at spectacular views of Mont Blanc. It also serves as one of the most unusual natural laboratories in the world. Continued here

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How Nigerians are using WhatsApp groups to fight food inflation For Cecelia Anahobi, a single mother of two, grocery shopping in 2022 meant navigating steadily rising food prices. As inflation in Nigeria crossed 20%, Anahobi, a resident of Calabar city in southern Nigeria, saw bread, milk, cereal, meat, and vegetables become costlier with each trip to the store. So, when a colleague told her about bulk shopping via WhatsApp, she couldn’t wait to try it. In November, Anahobi joined a WhatsApp group called Calabar Grocery Group, whose 590 members source items in bulk directly from producers, and share among themselves. “We bought a bag of local rice for 28,000 naira [$60.90] in December, whereas it was selling for 36,000 naira [$78.30] at the market,” Anahobi told Rest of World. “So this [food group] gives me more value for my money because the food is bought in bulk, which is way cheaper than if you were buying in bits.” Continued here

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As TikTok faces a ban, other Chinese companies in US try to pass as locals As the first Chinese-born social media app to become mainstream in the West, TikTok once served as a model for Chinese tech companies that wanted to go global. But as TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew prepares to appear before Congress on Thursday, the app is in danger of becoming a cautionary tale. U.S. officials have been raising concerns about TikTok’s data security and Chinese ties since former president Donald Trump’s attempt at a ban in 2020. But tensions escalated this month with the Senate’s introduction of the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology (RESTRICT) Act. The bill would grant broad powers to the president in regulating or even banning technologies seen as a threat to national security. In the short term, the proposed law would pave the way for a TikTok ban. In the long term, it would make it far easier to block Chinese tech companies from operating in the U.S., with unpredictable consequences for any companies hoping to replicate TikTok’s success. Continued here

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Mitochondria Transplants Save Rats from Cardiac Arrest A new study in rats suggests “powerhouse” organelles could help heal not only hearts but other organs damaged by lack of oxygen during cardiac arrest Healthy mitochondria, those tiny cellular structures high school biology teachers often tout as “the powerhouses of the cell,” are a necessity for producing energy in the body—but new research supports the idea that they are more than just adenosine triphosphate (ATP)–pumping machines. For about a decade, scientists have experimented with transplanting these microscopic organelles to treat damaged hearts and other tissues, and they have seen a handful of successful outcomes in human trials. But the role mitochondria play in the healing process is still a mystery. Continued here

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Beethoven's Cause of Death Revealed from Locks of Hair DNA from locks of Beethoven’s hair reveals how the composer died, but his hearing loss remains a mystery In the autumn of 1802, some 25 years before his death, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote a letter to his brothers. The famous composer, distraught about his encroaching loss of hearing, implored them to seek out his physician after his death and “beg him in my name to describe my malady.” Continued here

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Kindness Can Have Unexpectedly Positive Consequences People who engage in random acts of kindness may not fully recognize the impact of their behavior on others Scientists who study happiness know that being kind to others can improve well-being. Acts as simple as buying a cup of coffee for someone can boost a person's mood, for example. Everyday life affords many opportunities for such actions, yet people do not always take advantage of them. Continued here

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Mathematician Wins Abel Prize for 'Smooth' Physics Luis Caffarelli’s work includes equations underpinning physical phenomena, such as melting ice and flowing liquids Argentinian-born mathematician Luis Caffarelli has won the 2023 Abel Prize — one of the most coveted awards in mathematics — for his work on equations that are important for describing physical phenomena, such as how ice melts and fluids flow. He is the first person born in South America to win the award. Continued here

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The World Faces a Water Crisis and 4 Powerful Charts Show How Hundreds of millions of people lack access to safe water and sanitation. Will the first U.N. conference on water in nearly 50 years make a difference? The United Nations water conference started this week. Co-hosted by the Netherlands and Tajikistan, the three-day event will take place at UN headquarters in New York and will be the first such event in nearly half a century. During that time, a rising number of people around the world have gained access to safe water and sanitation (see ‘A tale of two halves’) — except in sub-Saharan Africa (see ‘The neglect of Africa’), where the numbers without safe drinking-water services are greater than they were in 2000. Globally, around 500 million people are compelled to use open defecation, and millions more rely on contaminated water supplies. Can this conference make a difference? Continued here

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Top Math Prize Awarded for Describing the Dynamics of the Flow of Rivers and the Melting of Ice Argentine mathematician Luis Caffarelli has won the 2023 Abel Prize for making natural phenomena more understandable and eliminating dreaded “infinities” from a calculation Mathematics is the language that lets us describe the universe. Galileo Galilei was already convinced of that in the 16th century. But even everyday phenomena such as the melting of an ice cube in a glass of water can lead to equations that are so complex that they overwhelm those with high levels of mathematical expertise. That has not stopped Argentine mathematician Luis Caffarelli from devoting himself to precisely such problems during his research career, however. The Norwegian Academy of Sciences and Letters has now honored Caffarelli with this year's Abel Prize, the highest honor in mathematics. Continued here

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Climate Change Is Destabilizing Insurance Industry Insurers face a “crisis of confidence” as global warming makes weather events unpredictable and increases damage CLIMATEWIRE | The president of one of the world’s largest insurance brokers warned Wednesday that climate change is destabilizing the insurance industry, driving up prices and pushing insurers out of high-risk markets. Continued here

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There Is Still Plenty We Can Do to Slow Climate Change While it may seem daunting, there are still many things we can do individually to slow climate change After several years of agreements and plans to limit global warming, we are still way off track. Continued here

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Eye Drops Recalled after Deaths and Blindness--Here's What to Know Here’s how to tell whether your eye drops are safe to use and how to recognize a potential infection Health professionals are investigating an outbreak of an antibiotic-resistant microbe found in certain bottles of lubricating eye drops, or artificial tears. Continued here

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How to keep your hometown from becoming a ghost town "My very first film was about a town that disappeared," says documentarian John Paget. It was the beginning of a lifelong fascination with cities and towns across the US that experienced slow-motion declines -- but managed to stage a comeback after an era of demise. From the closure of the iconic Route 66 to the roller-coaster history of Buffalo, New York, Paget reveals the power of sharing your town's "civic story" to spark local revitalization. Continued here

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Brandon Sanderson Is Your God Most years, Brandon Sanderson makes about $10 million. Last year, he made $55 million. This is obviously a lot of money for anyone. For a writer of young-adult-ish, never-ending, speed-written fantasy books, it’s huge. By Sanderson’s estimation, he’s the highest-selling author of epic fantasy in the world. On the day of his record-breaking Kickstarter campaign—$42 million of that $55 million—I came to the WIRED offices ready to gossip. How’d he do it? Why now? Is Brandon Sanderson even a good writer? On the one hand, who cares. Sanderson has millions upon millions of fans all over the planet; it doesn’t matter that some losers at a single magazine (even if it is one of the nerdier ones) had never heard of him. On the other, the ignorance goes far beyond WIRED. As far as I can tell, Sanderson, who has been topping bestseller lists for the better part of the 21st century, has not been written about in any depth by any major publication ever. I called his publicist to confirm this. “Well, we have a piece coming up in LDS Living,” he told me. That’s LDS as in Latter-day Saints. It’s a magazine for Mormons. Continued here

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A Nonprofit Wants Your DNA Data to Solve Crimes The 2018 arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, infamously known as the Golden State Killer, put genetic genealogy on the map. Investigators created a DNA profile of DeAngelo using crime scene evidence, and uploaded it to a public genealogy database people use to find relatives. From there, police were able to identify DeAngelo’s distant genetic connections and, using public records, build out a family tree to eventually zero in on him. It was the first publicized instance of genetic genealogy being used to identify the perpetrator of a violent crime. By one estimate, more than 500 murders and rapes have been solved with the technique in the years since. And those are just the ones that have been announced by law enforcement agencies. Although it’s mainly been a tool for cracking years-old cold cases, genetic genealogy was recently used by police to arrest Bryan Kohberger for the November 2022 murders of four college students at the University of Idaho. (Kohberger has been charged but has not yet entered a plea.) Continued here

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Inside Taiwan's 'Sacred Mountain' of Chip-Making If you're reading this, you can thank a semiconductor. Phones, tablets, computers—really any device more digital than pen and paper—all depend on the tiny chips inside them to function. The semiconductor industry is massive, and at the center of it all is one massive firm that makes the bulk of the chips we all rely on: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Known widely as just TSMC, the company is not only the most important entity in the chip industry, but also a powerful and stabilizing force in the geopolitical standoff between Taiwan and China that, if ignited, would affect the whole world. TSMC's untouchable status has earned it an amusing nickname: the Sacred Mountain of Protection. This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED contributor Virginia Heffernan talks about her trip to the TSMC facility in Taiwan. She tells us how chips are made and explains how the semiconductor industry—TSMC in particular—drives innovation while remaining largely invisible. Continued here

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This Body Composition Scale Comes With a Feeble Fitness App 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 Smart scale pioneer Withings has been making Wi-Fi-connected scales for more than a decade. As the Body Comp name suggests, Withings’ latest scales provide a breakdown of your body composition, adding vascular age, visceral fat, and nerve health to the usual list of measurements. The Body Comp ($210) scales come with a year’s subscription to Withings’ new Health+ fitness service, adding practical advice to all that data, with programs that include workouts and meal suggestions to cajole you toward healthier habits.  Continued here

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For Smarter Robots, Just Add Humans Teleoperating a physical robot could become an important job in future, according to Sanctuary AI, based in Vancouver, Canada. The company also believes that this might provide a way to train robots how to perform tasks that are currently well out of their (mechanical) reach, and imbue machines with a physical sense of the world some argue is needed to unlock human-level artificial intelligence. Industrial robots are powerful, precise, and mostly stubbornly stupid. They cannot apply the kind of precision and responsiveness needed to perform delicate manipulation tasks. That’s partly why the use of robots in factories is still relatively limited, and still requires an army of human workers to assemble all the fiddly bits into the guts of iPhones.  Continued here

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TikTok Paid for Influencers to Attend the Pro-TikTok Rally in DC Ahead of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s much-anticipated testimony in the United States House of Representatives today, the embattled tech firm conducted a full-court press on Capitol Hill. This included paying to bring TikTok influencers face-to-face with their home state lawmakers, staffers, and journalists, as well as sharing their journey with their collective audience of some 60 million followers.  TikTok covered travel, hotels, meals, and shuttle rides to and from the Capitol for dozens of influencers, according to the creators and the company itself. Each social media star was also invited to bring a plus one—whether they flew in from Oklahoma, hopped the Acela from New York, or drove in from their suburban Washington home. TikTok spokesperson Jamal Brown confirms that “TikTok covered travel expenses for all creators and a guest.” Continued here

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The TikTok Hearing Revealed That Congress Is the Problem In one sense, today’s US congressional hearing on TikTok was a big success: It revealed, over five hours, how desperately the United States needs national data-privacy protections—and how lawmakers believe, somehow, that taking swipes at China is a suitable alternative.  For some, the job on Thursday was casting the hearing's only witness, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, as a stand-in for the Chinese government—in some cases, for communism itself—and then belting him like a side of beef. More than a few of the questions lawmakers put to Chew were vague, speculative, and immaterial to the allegations against his company. But the members of Congress asking those questions feigned little interest in Chew’s responses anyway.  Continued here

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XENON experiment puts the squeeze on WIMPy dark matter When it comes to the question of “What makes up the Universe?” the Standard Model simply doesn’t add up. When we add up all of the normal matter — stuff made up of quarks and charged leptons — we find that it’s only responsible for about 1/6th of the total “mass” that must be out there. Additionally, observations of individual galaxies, of groups and clusters of galaxies, of the cosmic microwave background, and of the large-scale structure of the Universe all paint the same picture: a Universe where 5/6ths of the mass out there isn’t made of any Standard Model particle, but rather is invisible, cold, and non-interacting except through the gravitational force. We call this massive species of matter that must exist, but whose nature remains unknown, dark matter. This dark matter must be cold (i.e., moving slow compared to the speed of light) at even early times, teaching us that if it ever were in thermal equilibrium with the “primordial particle soup” of the hot Big Bang, it must be quite a massive species of particle. These classes of particles — that interact only very weakly but that have large rest masses — are collectively known as WIMPs: Weakly Interacting Massive Particles. In a remarkable experimental achievement, the XENON collaboration just announced, via a public talk from Daniel Wenz, the tightest constraints on WIMP dark matter, with even better results expected in the very near future. It’s a remarkable experimental achievement, and one that illustrates just how experimental physics progresses. Continued here

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The earliest modern humans in Europe mastered bow-and-arrow technology 54,000 years ago Based on research in France’s Mandrin cave, in February 2022 we published a study in the journal Science Advances that pushed back the earliest evidence of the arrival of the first Homo sapiensin Europe to 54,000 years ago – 11 millennia earlier than had been previously established. In the study, we described nine fossil teeth excavated from all the archeological layers in the cave. Eight were determined to be from Neanderthals, but one from one of the middle layers belonged to a paleolithic Homo sapiens. Based on this and other data, we determined that these early Homo sapiens of Europe were later replaced by Neanderthal populations. Continued here

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The real reason Socrates was given the death sentence The Apology is one of Plato’s earliest known dialogues. Socrates is on trial for blasphemy charges and corrupting the Athenian youth in this literarily rich text. These charges involved teaching the youth to “make weaker arguments appear stronger” and believing in idols or gods not approved by the state. In Aristophanes’ play The Clouds, Socrates’ “sophistry” is amusingly satirized as the philosopher tricking the youth into paying him to teach them subversive childishness, such as farting instead of arguing. The unfortunate effect this and other hostile works of art and theater had was to amplify the beliefs that most Athenians, especially older ones, already held — namely, that this 70-year-old man was a danger to the state and must stand trial. But how did Socrates get an entire city to despise him? What “idol” did Socrates worship, and what wicked things did he teach the youth of Athens? Continued here

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What makes science different from everything else? The term “science” carries a centuries-long aura of legitimacy and respectability. But not every field of research can rightly call itself scientific. Traditionally, fields such as biology, chemistry, physics, and their spinoffs constitute the hard sciences while social sciences are called the soft sciences. A very good reason exists for this demarcation, and it has nothing to do with how difficult, useful, or interesting the field is. The distinction rests on the scientific rigor of a field’s research methods. Continued here

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How to psychologically recover from a major financial setback Three-quarters of American workers over 60 have experienced at least one year without income at some point in their adult lives, according to research by the National Endowment for Financial Education. By age 70, 96% have experienced at least one major life shock like a layoff, serious illness, or divorce.  Not surprisingly, such events often derail one’s financial stability, further magnifying one’s psychological stress.  Continued here

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How earthquakes helped us map the interior of the Sun The Sun is a giant sphere of plasma. Temperatures at its core exceed 10 million° C, and they drop to about 5,500° C at the surface. Densities at the solar core are also extreme, reaching more than 20 times the density of solid iron. But they too drop dramatically as you rise from core to surface.  These facts by themselves are pretty remarkable, but even more remarkable is how we know them. How can scientists know anything about the Sun’s interior, when the only light we see comes from its surface? The answer to that question comes in the form of what is known as helioseismology. Continued here

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Framework's first gaming laptop features upgradeable GPUs, swappable keyboards We were skeptical at first, but Framework has delivered on the promise of its original 13-inch laptop. Three product generations in, the company has made a respectable competitor for the Dell XPS 13 or MacBook Air that can be repaired, modified, and upgraded, and owners of the original laptop can easily give themselves a significant performance boost by upgrading to the new 13th-generation Intel or AMD Ryzen-based boards the company announced today. Continued here

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Framework gives its modular laptops 13th-gen Intel CPUs and (finally) an AMD option For the second year in a row, Framework has announced new upgrades for its modular, repairable Framework Laptop that can be installed directly in older versions of the Framework Laptop. There are two motherboards: one with a predictable upgrade from 12th-generation Intel Core CPUs to 13th-generation chips and one that brings AMD's Ryzen laptop processors to the Framework Laptop for the first time. Continued here

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The Paja Formation: An ecosystem of monsters Roughly 130 million years ago, in an area within what is now central Colombia, the ocean was filled with a diversity of species unseen today. Within that water swam several massive apex predators that are the stuff of nightmares. These marine reptiles could reach lengths of 2 to 10 meters (about 6 to 32 feet), some with enormous mouths filled with teeth, others with relatively small heads (also filled with teeth) attached to long, snake-like necks. Continued here

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The Leia Lume Pad 2 is a $1,100, glasses-free 3D Android tablet Does anyone out there want a 3D Android tablet? ZTE and a company called Leia—like the Star Wars princess, I guess—is making a 12.4-inch, $1,100 Android tablet with a glasses-free 3D display. Internationally the hardware is sold by ZTE and is called the "ZTE Nubia Pad 3D," while in the US, where the government has designated ZTE a threat to national security, the tablet is branded as the "Leia Lume Pad 2." As far as we can tell, ZTE is responsible for the hardware, while Leia is bringing 3D tech and software to the tablet. Continued here

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"Click-to-cancel" rule would penalize companies that make you cancel by phone Canceling a subscription should be just as easy as signing up for the service, the Federal Trade Commission said in a proposed "click-to-cancel" rule announced today. If approved, the plan "would put an end to companies requiring you to call customer service to cancel an account that you opened on their website," FTC commissioners said. Continued here

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Tech makers must provide repairs for up to 10 years under proposed EU law Makers of numerous product categories, including TVs, vacuums, smartphones, and tablets, could be required to enable repairs for their products for up to 10 years after purchase, depending on the device type. The European Commission on Wednesday announced a proposal it has adopted that would implement long-term repair requirements on electronics makers if the European Parliament and Council approve it. Continued here

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There's a simpler answer to 'Oumuamua's weird orbit: Outgassing hydrogen In late 2017, our Solar System received its very first known interstellar visitor: a bizarre cigar-shaped object hurtling past at 44 kilometers per second, dubbed 'Oumuamua (Hawaiian for "messenger from afar arriving first"). Was it a comet? An asteroid? A piece of alien technology? Scientists have been puzzling over the origin and unusual characteristics of 'Oumuamua ever since, most notably its strange orbit, and suggesting various models to account for them. Continued here

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Missouri House advances bill to limit nonexistent vaccine microchips--just in case In the latest efforts by Republican lawmakers to enshrine into law Americans' right to freely spread deadly infectious diseases to each other, the Missouri House this week advanced a bill that would bar governments, schools, and employers from mandating certain vaccines—as well as things like vaccine microchips, which do not exist. Continued here