Friday 10th May 2024

Cubic millimetre of brain mapped in spectacular detail

Google scientists have modelled a fragment of the human brain at nanoscale resolution, revealing cells with previously undiscovered features.

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The world has (probably) passed peak pollution

Of course, emissions are not falling everywhere. They’ve fallen steeply in richer countries like the US and much of Europe. And the big turning point for the global figures has been the rapid turnaround in China. Emissions have declined rapidly in the last decade, with huge gains for public health.

The goal now is to see if countries can move through this curve much faster – and with lower levels of pollution – than countries like the US or the UK did. This should be doable: we’ve learned a lot over the last 50 years about how to produce energy with less pollution, what technologies work and don’t work, and have reduced the costs of solutions that were expensive in their early days.

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A New Book Might Convince You About “Plant Intelligence”

Most modern humans regard plants as alive but a bit boring by the standards of creatures that can move around freely. They're wrong.

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Made in America: The Ridiculous History of 'OK'

In the early 19th century, new printing technologies dramatically reduced the cost of publishing a daily newspaper, and there was a resulting explosion of inexpensive new dailies known collectively as the penny press. Competing for readers, penny papers in cities like New York, Philadelphia and Boston published not only straight news stories, but also witty takes on the latest political scandals, social scenes and popular trends.

In addition to the abbreviation craze, 19th-century Americans thought it was really funny to purposely misspell stuff. Read, the etymologist, cited the example of the comic writer George W. Arnold, who used the pen name "Joe Strickland" to write mangled letters to his fictional family, like this one from a trip abroad: "when I got here tha axt me if I was evver in Turky before. no ses I. but i've had a darn menny turkeys in me."

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Under Joe Biden, America struggles to reassert itself in Africa - The Economist (No paywall)

As Chinese and Russian influence rise, the odds are against it

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To stay fit, future Moon-dwellers will need special workouts - The Economist (No paywall)

Running around the inside of a barrel might help

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What strategies actually work to fight dying? - The Economist (No paywall)

A prominent biologist tackles a morbid topic

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Thailand's cooling rice dish to beat the heat

The sweltering heat during Buddhist New Year calls for Thailand's cooling khao chae, a fragrant and refreshing bowl of rice delicately scented with flowers.

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For Ambitious Employees, a Viable Career Path Can Make Up for a Just-OK Manager | Lynda Gratton

The spring 2024 issue’s special report looks at how to take advantage of market opportunities in the digital space, and provides advice on building culture and friendships at work; maximizing the benefits of LLMs, corporate venture capital initiatives, and innovation contests; and scaling automation and digital health platform.

The spring 2024 issue’s special report looks at how to take advantage of market opportunities in the digital space, and provides advice on building culture and friendships at work; maximizing the benefits of LLMs, corporate venture capital initiatives, and innovation contests; and scaling automation and digital health platform.

In a tight labor market for talent, retaining skilled people is crucial, both to maintain an organization’s skills and capabilities and to avoid the costs and disruption of recruiting. So understanding why people stay and why they leave is important.

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The Star Wars Prequels' Biggest Innovation Had Unlikely Roots

There is no doubt that the special effects in The Phantom Menace were groundbreaking. When Jar Jar Binks and Watto hit the screen, complaints about the characters had more to do with their function in the story (and what some felt to be their problematic undertones) rather than their visual design. According to producer Rick McCallum — who got his start at Lucasfilm working on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles before producing movies for the studio all the way up to Red Tails in 2012 — there was only one shot in The Phantom Menace that wasn’t manipulated with computer-generated imagery, which means just about everything was run through the computer.

The emphasis on CGI was largely a marketing technique that backfired, though. Although there was a substantial amount of CGI, there were more physical effects and models built for The Phantom Menace than the entire classic trilogy combined.

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