Thursday 25th April 2024

Why walking backwards can be good for your health and brain

During the 19th Century, the activity of "retro-walking" was little more than an eccentric hobby, but today research is revealing it can have real benefits for your health and brain.

Continued here

Do societies grow more fragile and vulnerable to collapse?

Pre-modern states and civilisations became more prone to collapse as time passed – a pattern that holds lessons for today's ageing global powers.

Continued here

Should Your Company Buy Fancy New AI PCs? If the Price is Right, Maybe - Inc.com (No paywall)

The global PC market is limping along, and if an AI-centered model has no clear benefits, some experts say those PCs may not be worth the extra cost.

Continued here

Productivity Skills to Help You Gain Time Back - Harvard Business Review (No paywall)

Most of us are incredibly careful about how we spend our money. But when it comes to our time, we hardly give it a second thought. The good news is that there are easy ways to take some of your time back. Process-oriented tasks that can’t be automated should at the very least be delegated or outsourced. If it’s a low-risk, repeatable, non-complex task that somebody else can do for you at fraction of what your hourly rate is, why are you still doing it? Most decisions are reversible and should be made quickly. If it’s not necessary to have a meeting (it’s usually not), use asynchronous communication tools; the reality is that most things don’t require an immediate response. While you’ll initially have to spend some time to make time, like compound interest, over the long-term, you will save exponentially more time than you invest.

Continued here

8 Secret, Invite-only Travel Elite Status Tiers That You've Never Heard Of

Airlines and hotels offer secret invitation-only elite statuses for their biggest spenders that come with some next-level perks.

Continued here

Ukraine warzone items in artist Yuliia Holovatiuk-Ungureanu's show

Artist and refugee Yuliia Holovatiuk-Ungureanu says the display is “my way of serving my country".

Continued here

Economic Growth Forecasts for G7 and BRICS Countries in 2024

Over the last decade, U.S. debt interest payments have more than doubled amid vast government spending during the pandemic crisis. As debt payments continue to soar, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that debt servicing costs surpassed defense spending for the first time ever this year.

As the national debt has ballooned, debt payments even exceeded Medicaid outlays in 2023—one of the government’s largest expenditures. On average, the U.S. spent more than $2 billion per day on interest costs last year. Going further, the U.S. government is projected to spend a historic $12.4 trillion on interest payments over the next decade, averaging about $37,100 per American.

Continued here

Coco Gauff Is Playing for Herself Now

At 20, the defending U.S. Open champion is moving into a new phase of her career

Continued here

How to get the right balance of omega-3s and omega-6s in your diet - New Scientist (No paywall)

The balance of omega fatty acids in the food we eat affects our health. But what does the evidence say about claims you should be seeking to reduce omega-6 intake as well as boosting omega-3s?

Continued here

Why the 2024 hurricane season could be especially active - Environment (No paywall)

Although it is too early for any models to offer an official prediction—the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) won’t be issuing a forecast until May 23—experts who spoke with National Geographic warned that warm sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic and the development of a La Niña in the Pacific may create a “perfect storm” of the conditions needed for major hurricanes.

Alex DaSilva, lead hurricane forecaster with AccuWeather, explains that wind shear occurs when wind changes direction and speed at different heights in the atmosphere. That affects tropical cyclones, he says, because such storms “like their cloud structures to go straight up into the atmosphere. But when there's a lot of wind shear, when there are changing winds with direction and height, they essentially knock over those clouds so they cannot grow straight up. And so that kind of prevents typically tropical systems from really intensifying.”

Continued here