The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

Even mild COVID-19 cases can have major and long-lasting effects on people’s health. That is one of the key findings from our recent multicountry study on long COVID-19—or long COVID—recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Long COVID is defined as the continuation or development of symptoms three months after the initial infection from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. These symptoms last for at least two months after onset with no other explanation.

We found that a staggering 90 percent of people living with long COVID initially experienced only mild illness with COVID-19. After developing long COVID, however, the typical person experienced symptoms including fatigue, shortness of breath, and cognitive problems such as brain fog—or a combination of these—that affected daily functioning. These symptoms had an impact on health as severe as the long-term effects of traumatic brain injury. Our study also found that women have twice the risk of men and four times the risk of children for developing long COVID.

We analyzed data from 54 studies reporting on over 1 million people from 22 countries who had experienced symptoms of COVID-19. We counted how many people with COVID-19 developed clusters of new long-COVID symptoms and determined how their risk of developing the disease varied based on their age, sex, and whether they were hospitalized for COVID-19.

We found that patients who were hospitalized for COVID-19 had a greater risk of developing long COVID—and of having longer-lasting symptoms—compared with people who had not been hospitalized. However, because the vast majority of COVID-19 cases do not require hospitalization, many more cases of long COVID have arisen from these milder cases despite their lower risk. Among all people with long COVID, our study found that nearly one out of every seven were still experiencing these symptoms a year later, and researchers don’t yet know how many of these cases may become chronic.

Why it matters

Compared with COVID-19, relatively little is known about long COVID.

Our systematic, multicountry analysis of this condition delivered findings that illuminate the potentially steep human and economic costs of long COVID around the world. Many people who are living with the condition are working-age adults. Being unable to work for many months could cause people to lose their income, their livelihoods, and their housing. For parents or caregivers living with long COVID, the condition may make them unable to care for their loved ones.

We think, based on the pervasiveness and severity of long COVID, that it is keeping people from working and therefore contributing to labor shortages. Long COVID could also be a factor in how people losing their jobs has disproportionately affected women.

We believe that finding effective and affordable treatments for people living with long COVID should be a priority for researchers and research funders. Long COVID clinics have opened to provide specialized care, but the treatments they offer are limited, inconsistent, and may be costly.

What’s next

Long COVID is a complex and dynamic condition—some symptoms disappear, then return, and new symptoms appear. But researchers don’t yet know why.

While our study focused on the three most common symptoms associated with long COVID that affect daily functioning, the condition can also include symptoms like loss of smell and taste, insomnia, gastrointestinal problems, and headaches, among others. But in most cases these additional symptoms occur together with the main symptoms we made estimates for.

There are many unanswered questions about what predisposes people to long COVID. For example, how do different risk factors, including smoking and high body-mass index, influence people’s likelihood of developing the condition? Does getting reinfected with SARS-CoV-2 change the risk for long COVID? Also, it is unclear how protection against long COVID changes over time after a person has been vaccinated or boosted against COVID-19.

COVID-19 variants also present new puzzles. Researchers know that the omicron variant is less deadly than previous strains. Initial evidence shows lower risk of long COVID from omicron compared with earlier strains, but far more data is needed.

Most of the people we studied were infected with the deadlier variants that were circulating before omicron became dominant. We will continue to build on our research on long COVID as part of the Global Burden of Disease study—which makes estimates of deaths and disability due to all diseases and injuries in every country in the world—in order to get a clearer picture of how COVID-19’s long-term toll shifted once omicron arrived.

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Amazon announced plans for another round of job cuts yesterday, bringing the total number of layoffs since November to more than 18,000 worldwide.

"Between the reductions we made in November and the ones we're sharing today, we plan to eliminate just over 18,000 roles," CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a message to employees that Amazon posted publicly. "Several teams are impacted; however, the majority of role eliminations are in our Amazon Stores and PXT organizations."

Amazon's physical stores include Amazon Go, Amazon Fresh, and Amazon Style. There was no mention of Whole Foods stores in Jassy's announcement. PXT is People Experience and Technology Solutions, the Amazon human resources division.

A Wall Street Journal report noted that the 18,000 layoffs "are concentrated in the company's corporate ranks and represent roughly 5 percent of that element of its workforce and 1.2 percent of its overall tally of 1.5 million employees as of September."

Amazon's stock price was down about 2 percent this morning and has fallen nearly 50 percent in the past 12 months.

"These changes will help us pursue our long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure; however, I'm also optimistic that we'll be inventive, resourceful, and scrappy in this time when we're not hiring expansively and eliminating some roles," Jassy wrote.

The layoffs that began in November initially targeted about 10,000 jobs and included cuts in the hardware division that makes products including Echo, Alexa, Fire, and Kindle devices. Amazon said in an October 2022 filing that it had 1.54 million employees worldwide, including full-time and part-time workers but excluding contractors and "temporary personnel." The head count of 1.54 million was an increase from 1.34 million in mid-2021.

CEO cites “uncertain economy” and previous hiring spree

The decision to lay off employees in November was made as part of Amazon's annual planning process for 2023, Jassy wrote. "This year's review has been more difficult given the uncertain economy and that we've hired rapidly over the last several years," he wrote.

The November layoffs were followed by "further reviews" that resulted in the additional job cuts announced yesterday, he wrote. The new round of layoffs will begin on January 18.

"We typically wait to communicate about these outcomes until we can speak with the people who are directly impacted," Jassy wrote. "However, because one of our teammates leaked this information externally, we decided it was better to share this news earlier so you can hear the details directly from me." (The initial version of The Wall Street Journal report on Amazon layoffs cited "people familiar with the matter.")

Laid-off employees will get "a separation payment, transitional health insurance benefits, and external job placement support," Jassy wrote.

In quarterly earnings announced in October, Amazon said net sales increased 15 percent to $127.1 billion year over year, but net income dropped from $3.2 billion to $2.9 billion.

Amazon's operating income numbers show that the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud computing division is driving profits. AWS net sales were $20.5 billion with operating income of $5.4 billion in Q3 2022, while the rest of the company posted an operating loss of $2.9 billion. Overall, Amazon's operating income dropped from $4.9 billion in Q3 2021 to $2.5 billion in Q3 2022.

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On Thursday at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the electric vehicle maker Polestar announced that its forthcoming Polestar 3 SUV will be one of the first vehicles in the world to use Google's new high-definition map.

Unlike the Google Maps you might access on your phone, the new HD map is much more accurate, pinpointing your position on the road down to an inch or less instead of several feet. Although that accuracy is not particularly useful to someone on a smartphone, it's vitally important for partially or fully automated driving systems that need to know which lane they're in or exactly where a road obstacle might be.

Google has evidently been building its HD map for some time—in 2017, its Street View mapping cars started sporting lidar scanners. And I'm not entirely surprised that Google is debuting the new map in a Polestar—the young automaker was also the first to use Android Automotive OS, which debuted in the Polestar 2 but can now be found in an increasing number of new vehicles from many different automakers.

"Building on our long history of mapping the world, Google's new HD map is designed specifically for automakers, and we're excited to continue partnering with leading car manufacturers like Polestar to improve the safety and comfort of drivers everywhere," said Jorgen Behrens, VP and general manager of Geo Automotive at Google.

We expect that the new HD map will also show up in the closely related Volvo EX90 electric SUV, which will share a platform—and eventually a South Carolina factory—with the Polestar 3.

Polestar also had some news for Polestar 2 owners at CES. Now, owners can interact with their cars via compatible Google Assistant-enabled devices. You can hear the current battery status, turn on or off climate preconditioning, and unlock the doors, among other things. For now, this feature is only available to US-market Polestar 2s, but the automaker says it will add more markets in time.

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In 2016, scientists discovered time crystals, solids with an oscillating internal structure that repeats itself in time rather than in space. Now, they have found another, in a regular crystal that can be easily made at home in one of those grow-your-own-crystal toys. 

As reported in two studies published in Physical Review Letters and Physical Review B, researchers have identified the typical behavior of a discrete time crystal (DTC) in mono-ammonium phosphate. This discovery complicates the theory behind time crystals, as researchers have generally believed that these objects require a certain "internal disorder" to be able to act as time crystals. 

The team had grown crystals for a different experiment but was curious to see if they could observe the expected DTC signal in them. They used nuclear magnetic resonance and were surprised to discover the signature as quickly as they did.

"Our crystal measurements looked quite striking right off the bat," the principal investigator for the two new studies Professor Sean Barrett, from Yale University, said in a statement. "Our work suggests that the signature of a DTC could be found, in principle, by looking in a children's crystal growing kit."

Time crystals have been likened to weird jiggling Jell-O. You start shaking it, but the gelatin oscillates with a frequency that doesn’t correspond to your movements. This is what happens with time crystals. No matter what your initial push might have been, the time crystal assumes a specific frequency. So even if your pulses are imperfect, the time crystal will oscillate with a clockwork tick.

How such structures come to be is unclear and the research challenges many of the expectations and ideas put forward over the last several years. "We realized that just finding the DTC signature didn't necessarily prove that the system had a quantum memory of how it came to be," said Yale graduate student Robert Blum, a co-author of the studies.

The team then pushed their investigation further. "This spurred us to try a time crystal 'echo,' which revealed the hidden coherence, or quantum order, within the system," lead author Jared Rovny, also a Yale graduate student, explained.

Time crystals could potentially improve well-established technologies like atomic clocks, magnetometers, and even the gyroscopes used in mobile phones to determine their orientation. They might even play an important role in emergent quantum technologies, an area of research that will likely see increased investment over the next few years.

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Archeologists have found traces of a Viking hall in Denmark that once stood at the time of Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson, the ancient king of Denmark whose moniker inspired the name of the technology that wirelessly connects your smartphone to speakers.

The hall was recently uncovered by archeologists near the village of Hune in North Jutland, Denmark, according to an announcement from the Historical Museum of Northern Jutland. Based on imprints left behind from the structure, they estimated the building once measured approximately 40 meters (131 feet) long and 8 to 10 meters (26 to 32 feet) wide. 

"This is the largest Viking Age find of this nature in more than ten years, and we have not seen anything like it before here in North Jutland, even though it has only been partially excavated," Thomas Rune Knudsen, excavation leader and archaeologist at the North Jutland Museums, said. 

"We only had the opportunity to excavate part of the hall, but there are probably several houses hidden under the mulch to the east. A hall building of this nature rarely stands alone."

It’s known that people in the Norse lands lived in longhouses (langhús) throughout the Viking era, just as they have in many cultures across time and space. However, they believe this particular building was more likely to be a prestigious building that served as a place for political meetings and ceremonies. It perhaps also had another everyday communal use when it wasn't being used for rowdy Viking gatherings.

Its shape and design appear to bear close similarities with structures from the late Viking Age, ranging from the first half of the ninth century CE to the end of the 11th century. To get a better grip on its age, the team will continue excavations throughout 2023 and analyze the site with radiocarbon dating. 

Another clue about the hall’s age comes from a fascinating rune that was previously discovered in the nearby area. Dated from 970 to 1020 CE, it reads: “Hove, Thorkild, Thorbjørn set their father Runulv den Rådnilde's stone". Along with providing a tighter time frame, the rune indicates the structure was perhaps linked to a local leader known as Runulv den Rådsnilde. 

"It is difficult to prove that the found Viking hall belonged to the family of Runulv den Rådsnilde, but it is certainly a possibility. If nothing else, the rune stone and hall represent the same social class and both belong to society's elite," explained Knudsen. 

If all this is on the money, it would show that the hall was being used during the time of Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson, king of Denmark from 958 to 986 CE. His name reportedly comes from his having a "dead" tooth which was a grey/blue color, and his reign was especially notable as he was the first ruler to support the spread of Christianity across Denmark. 

As for ol' Bluetooth's connection with the prolific wireless technology we use today, it’s said to be a reference to the king’s relationship with Norway. Just as Bluetooth technology allows cross-communication between devices of all kinds, this king united Denmark and Norway in 958 CE.

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Edward Norton has discovered that he is directly related to Pocahontas, the Native American woman whose life and tragic run-in with European colonialism have inspired many stories. 

Norton’s surprising ancestor was revealed during his recent appearance on the PBS show Finding Your Roots in which celebrities learn about their ancestral histories.  He said he was told as a child that he was a direct descendant of Pocahontas, but always assumed it was fanciful "family legend".

It turns out, these rumors were true. Historian and host Henry Louis Gates Jr confirmed that Pocahontas was the 12th great-grandmother of the Hollywood actor by tracing documents about his ancestors right back to the 1614 marriage certificate between Pocahontas and John Rolfe.

“You have a direct paper trail, no doubt about it, connection to your 12th great-grandmother and great-grandfather, John Rolfe and Pocahontas,” Gates explained. 

Born in 1596, Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief of the Powhatan people whose ancestral lands lay in east Virginia. When English colonialists arrived and settled in Jamestown in 1607, Pocahontas was about 11 years old. Around this time, Captain John Smith was captured by Powhatan's brother Opechancanough and was displayed at several Powhatan towns across east Virginia. 

Smith was set to be executed by having a warrior smash his skull with a club. So the story goes, Pocahontas stopped the execution of Captain John Smith by laying her head upon his, preventing the skull-smashing from occurring. 

By 1613, she was captured by the English and held ransom. After being forced to convert to Christianity, she was married to the tobacco planter John Rolfe in April 1614. Two years on, Pocahontas was shipped to the UK where she was presented as an exotic spectacle of the “New World”. She died in March 1617 of an unspecified illness in the town of Gravesend, south England. 

Being the 12th great-grandmother of Pocahontas might sound impressive, but it’s worth remembering the number of people in your family tree doubles with each generation. We all have four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and 16 great-great-grandparents. Following this, each and every one of us has 16,384 12th great-grandparents.

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Neanderthals were a species of human that lived in Europe and Asia between about 200,000 and 30,000 years ago. They are known for their distinctive physical characteristics, such as a stocky build, a large nose, and a protruding lower jaw. Despite being closely related to modern humans, Neanderthals ultimately went extinct, possibly due to a combination of factors including competition with modern humans and changes in the climate.

This discovery is critical for studying the evolutionary model of hominins during the Middle Pleistocene period in Europe.

Jorge Rivera, a researcher and technician from the University of Seville’s GRS Radioisotopes department, has made a significant discovery in Europe involving hominin footprints found in Matalascañas. The team used optically-stimulated luminescence techniques at the University of Seville’s Centre for Research, Technology, and Innovation (CITIUS) and CENIEH, to determine that the footprints are 200,000 years older than previously thought, dating back to 295,800 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene period.

This suggests that pre-Neanderthals lived in the Doñana area during this time. The research, led by Professor of Paleontology Eduardo Mayoral at the University of Huelva, was recently published in the journal Scientific Reports.

The technique

Optically-stimulated luminescence is a method used to find the absolute age of sediments that have been fully exposed to sunlight.

Scientific milestone

The discovery in June 2020 of hominin footprints more than 106,000 years old next to El Asperillo (Matalascañas, Huelva) was a revolution for the scientific world, so much so that it was considered one of the most important discoveries of that year.

But now, the publication of this new paper has confirmed what some experts suspected at the time: those footprints were much older and are in fact 200,000 years older than previously thought. While it was previously placed in the Upper Pleistocene, the evidence now points clearly to the Middle Pleistocene, and to its being 295,800 years old, making it a unique record in Europe, since there is no better site in the world in terms of number, age and area than that of the El Asperillo beach for hominin fossil footprints.

After collecting samples from the various levels, and another two later to compare the first results, the age of the fossil remains was established and points to the Middle Pleistocene, a crucial moment between different climatic stages, between a warm period, MIS 9 (360,000-300,000 years ago), in transition to MIS 8 (300,000-240,000 years ago), in which a major glaciation took place.

The age is thus specified at 295,800 years, with a margin of error of 17,800 years, according to the data collected from the four samples of sedimentary levels in the cliffs of El Asperillo where the site was found, initially 87 footprints, which now has a record of more than 300 footprints, of which 10% are considered well-preserved. With the exception of those from Matalascañas, it is noted that no other hominin footprints are known between the climatic stages MIS9 and MIS 8 of the Middle Pleistocene. That is why it is questioned whether they belong to Neanderthals.

But are they Neanderthals?

At first, they were thought to be Neanderthals, but that is now in doubt. The main hypothesis among the scientists is that they are individuals of the Neanderthal lineage, among which Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis have been associated. The hypothesis that they are pre-neanderthal hominins is feasible.

Precisely for this reason, the Matalascañas footprints are now more valuable due to their contribution to the fossil records of hominins in the Middle Pleistocene, which is very poor in Europe because of the scarcity of deposits with footprints. Until now, according to the paper, footprints this period have only been found at Terra Amata and Roccamonfina (Italy), which were dated to between 380,000 and 345,000 years ago, with records of Homo heidelbergensis.

They are the only ones older than that at Huelva in this era. After these, Biache-Vaast (France) and Theopetra (Greece) sites, from 236,000 to 130,000 years ago, are attributed to Homo neanderthalensis. In this context, the length range of all the footprints found at Matalascañas, from 14 to 29 centimeters, is similar to that found at European sites, such as Theopetra (14-15 centimeters), Roccamonfina (24-27 cm) and Terra Amata (24 cm).

In any case, the experts highlight the singularity of the Matalascañas discovery, whose new dating has questioned the existing paradigms and has required a deep analysis before accepting its conclusions.

The new chronology now establishes a change in the scenario that then prevailed on the coast of the Gulf of Cádiz, with human settlements in a more temperate and humid climate than in the rest of Europe, with high water tables and abundant vegetation.

In that same period, the sea level would have been about 60 meters below its current level. This implies that the coast would be more than 20 kilometers from where it is today, which is how there would have been a great coastal plain, with large flood-prone areas, in which the footprints discovered in mid-2020 would have been made.

The site’s new dating also affects the vertebrate animals found, since the hominin traces there also included footprints of large mammals such as straight-tusked elephants, gigantic bulls (aurochs), and boars. It was the fauna that inhabited Doñana 300,000 years ago and not 100,000 years ago, as other investigations stated.

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The central and eastern United States experienced winter weather whiplash in December 2022 and January 2023, with possible contributions from the polar vortex. This resulted in a rapid shift from extremely cold temperatures to record high temperatures in North America.

The configuration of the polar vortex may have played a role in unleashing bitter cold followed by record warmth in North America.

December 2022 and January 2023 brought winter weather whiplash to the central and eastern United States.

In late December, many Americans reached for cold-weather gear as a blast of unusually cold Arctic air poured south and fueled a travel nightmare around Christmas. In Michigan and other parts of the Midwest, a “bomb cyclone” formed along the cold front bearing powerful winds and whiteout conditions. In certain parts of upstate New York and Canada, lake effect snow supercharged the storm, with more than 50 inches (125 centimeters) falling in Buffalo over a five-day period. The sprawling cold front left its mark on the Southeast as well, where the cold air helped fuel tornadoes, disrupted power supplies, and strained water systems.

In the first few days of January 2023, conditions changed dramatically. Instead of unseasonable cold, many of the same areas experienced unusual warmth. With temperatures running 20-30 degrees Fahrenheit higher than normal in the eastern U.S., spring-like weather broke temperature records in several states. Among the places that set new temperature records were St. Louis, Missouri; Raleigh, North Carolina; Paducah, Kentucky; Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania; Atlanta, Georgia; Georgetown, Delaware; and Dulles, Virginia.

The animation above shows surface air temperature across part of the Northern Hemisphere, including North America, for December 2022 and the first few days of January 2023. It was produced by combining satellite observations with temperatures calculated by a version of the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) global model, which uses mathematical equations to represent physical processes in the atmosphere. The darkest reds show areas with the warmest surface temperatures; blue areas show areas with the lowest surface temperatures.

The short pulses reflect daily daytime warming and nighttime cooling, but the spread of cold Arctic air south over much of the U.S. became apparent toward the end of the month, especially in the week before Christmas. The daily cycle is less visible over water because water more easily retains heat and maintains a more consistent temperature. Many areas saw temperature swings that ranged from roughly 20°C to 40°C (36°F to 72°F) between the heights of the cold spell on December 23 and the warm spell on December 30.

Continental United States surface temperature on December 23 and December 30, 2022.

 

The first week of 2023 also brought record-breaking warmth to Europe. A warm air mass from the west coast of Africa shattered thousands of temperature records across Europe, The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang reported. On New Year’s Day, at least seven countries saw their warmest January weather on record.

“There’s a common thread connecting all of these temperature extremes,” said Judah Cohen, a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a forecaster with Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER).

“In December, we saw an elongation and weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex in the Arctic—the band of strong westerly winds that circulate between about 10 to 30 miles (16 to 48 kilometers) above the North Pole in winter,” Cohen said. When the polar vortex is strong and circular, it keeps cold air bottled up over the Arctic; when it weakens and elongates, the jet stream in the troposphere also tends to elongate southward and cold air from the Arctic can spill down into the midlatitudes.

“But when the polar vortex ‘stretches’, it doesn’t stay in that configuration for long,” Cohen added. “Like a rubber band, it tends to ‘snap’ back into a circular shape, typically within about a week.” The snapback in early 2023 was a key part of the reason that the jet stream straightened out and why warmer air masses from equatorial regions warmed the eastern U.S. and Europe, according to Cohen.

There’s also a more complicated question that Cohen and other atmospheric scientists who specialize in the stratosphere are researching with growing interest: are these stratospheric polar vortex disruption events—these stretching events—becoming more frequent over time and, if so, why?

After analyzing decades of metrological data using the MERRA-2 weather reanalysis model maintained by NASA’s Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO), Cohen and colleagues think that stretched polar vortex events have become more common since 1980. In a study published in Science in 2021, Cohen and colleagues linked declines in Arctic sea ice in the Barents and Kara Sea and increases in snowfall in Siberia—both of which are linked to climate change—with an increase in polar vortex disruptions and cold spells in the midlatitudes.

“Not everybody agrees with us. It’s still contested science, but I am confident that we’ll see more and more examples of these stretching events in the stratosphere followed shortly after by cold snaps in the midlatitudes as the Arctic climate warms and changes,” said Cohen. “The stretching of the polar vortex we saw in December 2022 definitely fits that pattern.”

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A teenage girl who suffered from cyberbullying discovered that the anonymous troll behind hate messages she received over the past year was...her own mother!

Kendra Gayle Licari, from Michigan, abused her daughter online using juvenile slang to keep herself from being identified. She was arrested last month after a year-long investigation, to which FBI experts were called in to help search for the bully.

Even though Licari used a VPN (virtual private network) to disguise the source of the messages and spiced up her messages with juvenile slang to make them look like they were written by a boy or girl, detectives were eventually able to connect the messages to Licari.

The victim turned to her mother

After the victim turned to her mother for help, she allegedly reported the bullying to authorities. She even went so far as to cooperate with the mother of her daughter's boyfriend at the time to "help" find the cyberbully who sent the poor girl up to a dozen messages a day.

Initially, school authorities could not help and local law enforcement did not have the resources to track down the culprit.

BULLYING BY online ‘mean girls’ can have a deep psychological, social and emotional impact. (credit: TNS)

Isabella County Prosecutor David Barbary told local radio station WKRC: "When the case first came to our office, it was strange and almost unbelievable." He added that this is a continuous campaign of abuse: "We are talking about several hundred text messages, there are more than 1,000 pages of text in the file." Barbari said the messages were "mostly disturbing, humiliating and mean text messages."

However, after computer experts from the FBI identified that the messages came from Licari's phone, she broke down under investigation and confessed to the bullying spree against her daughter.

Bill City School Superintendent William Chilman said the 42-year-old Licari was a basketball coach at her daughter's school at the time of her actions. Licari was arraigned on Monday, December 12 - and released on $5,000 bail.

Using a computer to commit a crime is a felony in the US, with a potential sentence of up to 10 years in prison. Licari was also charged with stalking a minor and obstructing justice - both of which could carry an additional 5 years behind bars.

At this time it is unclear if there is enough evidence to transfer the case to trial and the hearing on the issue was postponed to January 12, without a reason being given.

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We all know that kindness matters. It can be the key to unlocking understanding, compassion, and even empathy. It can act as an antidote to fear, anxiety and stress. It can also be a powerful tool for achieving personal growth, healing and transformation. But why is kindness so powerful?

There are two main reasons why kindness is powerful: it promotes connection and it strengthens relationships. Connection is essential for our mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing. When we connect with others, we experience a sense of belonging. We feel accepted and valued. We also gain access to more resources and support that can help us to cope with challenges and make positive changes in our lives.

Relationships are also strengthened by kindness. Kindness can help to create a bond between two people, making communication easier and more meaningful. It can also help to reduce stress and conflict in relationships, promoting understanding, trust and mutual respect.

The power of kindness is evident in the way it affects our behaviour. When we are kind to someone, we naturally respond to them in kind. We become more patient, more understanding, and more willing to forgive. We become more generous and willing to help. We become more mindful and better able to recognize our own needs, as well as those of others.

The power of kindness can also be seen in its ability to spread kindness. When we show kindness to someone, we are not only making them feel good, but we are also inspiring them to show kindness to others. This ripple effect can have a far-reaching impact, as kindness spreads from person to person, creating an environment of warmth, acceptance and love.

The power of kindness goes beyond our individual actions. It can inspire change on a larger scale. When we show kindness to those around us, we are inspiring them to do the same. We are creating a culture of kindness in our communities, schools and workplaces. This kind of environment allows us to foster a greater sense of connectedness, understanding, acceptance and appreciation.

The power of kindness is undeniable. It has the capacity to bring out the best in those around us and to create a ripple effect that can have a profound impact on our lives, our communities and the world. Small acts of kindness can make a big difference. Our words and actions can be the catalyst for creating a world of kindness, connection, understanding and peace. So, let’s all make an effort to be kinder to ourselves and to those around us. Kindness really is the key to unlocking understanding, compassion and empathy.

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For two months, public health researcher Abdifatah Muhummed had been collecting stool samples from children in a remote, pastoralist community in Ethiopia’s Somali Region, as part of a global effort to catalog and preserve the diversity of human gut bacteria. He split each sample into four tubes, froze them at –80 degrees Celsius, and shipped two of them to Europe.

Trillions of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes live in the digestive tract. Many of them are beneficial to human health—influencing our metabolism and immune system, for example. But their diversity is under threat from industrialization, urbanization, and environmental changes.

When Muhummed analyzed some of the samples he’d collected—culturing them in petri dishes and adding a dye to make them visible under a microscope—he was astounded to find signs of antibiotic resistance, even in samples taken from children who had never been exposed to modern antibiotics.

That’s one of the reasons scientists want to create a global biobank—a Noah’s ark of microbes, so to speak—and permanently store samples from around the world, before it’s too late. “Of course, it is difficult to concretely say what we are losing,” says microbiologist Adrian Egli, who is based in Zurich and is part of the launch team for the Microbiota Vault project.

Stool samples from pastoralists are of particular interest to scientists, because diet affects the human microbiome. “Their lifestyle is totally different from people who live in cities or urban areas,” says Muhummed, a doctoral candidate who collected more than 350 samples as part of a collaboration between Jigjiga University, the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, and the University of Basel.

Pastoralists use milk as a staple food, so their diet is rich in fatty acids. Until now, however, pastoralists have rarely been surveyed in health studies because they are nomadic by nature, moving their flocks of sheep, goats, and camels among the few grazing areas left after years of drought in East Africa. They have little access to medical care.

As more people move to cities, they adopt new eating habits and are exposed to a different environment. Pastoralists in Ethiopia are also starting to buy more foods such as rice and pasta, according to Muhummed. This could change the composition of their microbiome and push the specialized bacteria living in their guts to extinction.

In the Microbiota Vault, tens of thousands of stool samples from healthy people all over the world could one day be permanently stored so that the different species of bacteria are not completely lost. They could even be revived and cultured to treat diseases in the distant future.

There are already dozens of stool banks and numerous ongoing efforts by researchers to sequence human microbiomes, all of whom may want to keep their samples in the vault as a backup. Like Noah’s ark, contributing researchers would divide their samples into two specimens: one for the vault, the other for them to keep locally (suppliers retain ownership of all samples). “It’s a give and take, a win-win for both sides. We provide the infrastructure, but we also get access to the sequencing data at some point,” says Egli. The Microbiota Vault project team, on the other hand, aims to document and publish sequencing data in a standardized form to facilitate international research.

Where the actual vault—currently just a freezer in Egli’s lab at the University of Zurich—will be built is still undecided: It could become part of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, or sit in a converted military bunker in the Alps; Switzerland’s political stability, good infrastructure, and links to international agencies such as the World Health Organization in Geneva make it a suitable candidate. The $1 million in funding will cover the pilot phase of the project until 2024.

To realize their vision, Egli and his colleagues first need to test which freezing techniques and preservatives are best to keep the bacteria alive in the long term. They will find this out when the first batch of samples is thawed and sequenced again after two years. “Then we can say which method best preserves microbial diversity,” he says.

This article was originally published in the January/February 2023 issue of WIRED UK magazine.

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Here is a run-down of the places that have imposed mandatory COVID tests and other rules on arrivals from China, which Beijing has condemned as "unacceptable".

United States

From Thursday, the United States will require negative COVID tests taken within two days of departure—or documentation proving passengers have recovered from the virus within the past 90 days—for all entries from China.

Acceptable tests include "a PCR test or an antigen self-test administered and monitored by a telehealth service or a licensed provider", according to the US Centers for Disease Control.

The rules include those travelling from Hong Kong and Macau.

European Union

Also from Thursday, all those arriving in France from China must present a negative PCR test result, or a rapid antigen test, that was taken less than 48 hours before their flight.

Italy and Spain have also imposed COVID test requirements.

The bloc said this week it "strongly encouraged" member states demand COVID tests from passengers coming from China and that arrivals are screened for the virus.

Australia

Australia is also requiring travellers from China—including Hong Kong and Macau—to provide a negative COVID-19 test before arrival, citing a "lack of comprehensive information" from Beijing about the outbreak.

Canada

Canada is asking travellers arriving from China to show a negative COVID test taken no more than two days before their departure.

United Kingdom

From Thursday, all travellers to the UK from China must submit a negative test before boarding.

The UK government also said it would test "a sample of arrivals" to monitor for new variants.

Israel

Israel is requiring COVID tests on foreigners intending to travel from China, with a screening centre set up to test arrivals who volunteer.

Japan

Japan was one of the first countries to impose new rules on arrivals from China, requiring them to submit a negative COVID test.

Those who test positive will be quarantined for seven days at designated facilities and Tokyo will also cap flights coming from mainland China.

From Sunday, Japanese authorities will also test travellers from China on arrival.

Taiwan

The self-ruled island of Taiwan—which China claims as its territory—has imposed testing requirements too, with state news agency CNA reporting that travellers from the mainland will be asked to undergo a saliva-based screening upon arrival.

South Korea

South Korea has also taken steps to screen travellers from China, requiring them to provide a negative COVID test before and after arrival.

Travellers from Hong Kong and Macau are included in the rules, which will also require all arrivals to take a COVID-19 test on their first day in South Korea.

Ghana

Ghana has become one of the first African countries to impose restrictions on travellers from China.

Its foreign ministry said that, from Friday, all arrivals from China must provide a negative test taken before departure as well as submit to mandatory screening for the virus.

India

India requires travellers from China and a spate of other Asian countries to provide a negative COVID test taken within 72 hours of departure.

Qatar

Qatar is asking all travellers from China to present a negative PCR result taken within 48 hours of departure, the Gulf state's health ministry has said.

Those who are infected on arrival "must undergo health isolation", state news agency QNA reported.

Morocco

The north African nation has taken some of the strictest measures, banning entry outright for all travellers from China.

The ban took effect on Tuesday and will last until further notice, "in order to avoid a new wave of contaminations in Morocco and all its consequences", its foreign ministry said.

© 2023 AFP

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The Chuiyangliu hospital in the city's east was packed with newly arrived patients on Thursday. By midmorning beds had run out, even as ambulances continued to bring those in need.

Hard-pressed nurses and doctors rushed to take information and triage the most urgent cases.

The surge in severely ill people needing hospital care follows China abandonment of its most severe pandemic restrictions last month after nearly three years of lockdowns, travels bans and school closures that weighed heavily on the economy and prompted street protests not seen since the late 1980s.

It also comes as the the European Union on Wednesday "strongly encouraged" its member states to impose pre-departure COVID-19 testing of passengers from China.

Over the past week, EU nations have reacted with a variety of restrictions toward travelers from China, disregarding an earlier commitment to act in unity.

Italy—where the pandemic first exacted a heavy toll in Europe in early 2020—was the first EU member to require coronavirus tests for airline passengers coming from China, but France and Spain quickly followed with their own measures. That followed the imposition by the U.S. of a requirement that all passengers from China show a negative test result obtained in the previous 48 hours before departure.

A man pushes his relative in pain on a wheelchair as patients receive intravenous drips in the emergency ward of a hospital in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. Patients, most of them elderly, are lying on stretchers in hallways and taking oxygen while sitting in wheelchairs as COVID-19 surges in China's capital Beijing.

Credit: AP Photo/Andy Wong

China has warned of "countermeasures" if such policies were to be imposed across the bloc.

Still, World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday he was concerned about the lack of outbreak data from the Chinese government.

At a daily briefing Thursday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Beijing has consistently "shared information and data with the international community in an open and transparent manner."

"At present, China's COVID-19 situation is under control," Mao said. "Also, we hope that the WHO secretariat will take a science-based, objective and impartial position to play a positive role in addressing the pandemic globally."

The terse language between China and the WHO contrasts sharply with what critics in the U.S. Congress and elsewhere called an overly friendly relationship between the two as the U.N. organization sought to probe the origins of the pandemic.

A medical worker talks to a woman as elderly patients receive intravenous drips along a corridor in the emergency ward of a hospital in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. Patients, most of them elderly, are lying on stretchers in hallways and taking oxygen while sitting in wheelchairs as COVID-19 surges in China's capital Beijing.

Credit: AP Photo/Andy Wong

While the first cases were reported in the central Chinese city of Wuhan in late 2019, China has claimed the virus originated in the U.S. or Europe and has been accused of withholding data that could help narrow the search for the cause.

In dealing with the latest outbreak, China has sought to get more of its elderly population vaccinated, but those efforts have been hampered by past scandals involving fake medications and previous warnings about adverse reactions to the vaccines among older people.

China's domestically developed vaccines are also considered less effective than the mRNA jabs used elsewhere.

Meanwhile, local authorities in some areas are appealing to the public to avoid traveling during this month's Lunar New Year holiday, as the last formal restrictions on movement are lifted.

People wearing face masks browse their phones as they look after their elderly relatives rest along a corridor of the emergency ward to receive intravenous drips at a hospital in Beijing, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. Patients, most of them elderly, are lying on stretchers in hallways and taking oxygen while sitting in wheelchairs as COVID-19 surges in China's capital Beijing.

Credit: AP Photo/Andy Wong

"We recommend that everyone not return to their hometowns unless necessary during the peak of the outbreak," the government of Shaoyang county in Hunan province in central China said in a notice dated Thursday. "Avoid visiting relatives and traveling between regions. Minimize travel."

Similar appeals were issued by Shouxian county in Anhui province southeast of Beijing and the cities of Qingyang in Gansu province in the northwest and Weifang in Shandong on the east coast.

The Weifang government notice said residents should celebrate the holiday with video and phone gatherings.

"Avoid visiting relatives and friends to protect yourself and others," it said.

Despite such concerns, Hong Kong announced it will reopen its border with mainland China on Sunday and allow tens of thousands of people to cross from each side every day without being quarantined. It was unclear what restrictions people traveling to the mainland side would face.

The city's land and sea border checkpoints with the mainland have been largely closed for almost three years and the reopening is expected to provide a much-needed boost to Hong Kong's tourism and retail sectors.

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Qantas has announced from late 2025, it will fly passengers on non-stop flights from Australia's east coast to London that would see you in the air for more than 19 hours in one stretch. That's compared with current flights that take the best part of 24 hours but are broken up into shorter legs.

So what will happen to your body during one of these longer flights? Is it any different to what happens when you fly long-haul now?

 1. You can become dehydrated

Dehydration is common on long-haul flights. It can explain why your throat, nose and skin can feel dry on an aeroplane. The longer the flight, the greater the risk of dehydration.

That's because of low levels of humidity in the cabin compared with what you'd expect on the ground. This is mostly because a lot of the air circulating through the cabin is drawn from the outside, and there's not a lot of moisture in the air at high altitudes.

You also risk dehydration by not drinking enough water, or drinking too much alcohol (alcohol is a diuretic, resulting in an increase in fluid lost).

So drink water before you jump on the plane. During the flight, you'll also need to drink more water than you usually would.

2. The cabin can play havoc with your ears, sinuses, gut and sleep

As the cabin pressure changes, the gas in our bodies reacts accordingly. It expands as the aircraft climbs and pressure decreases, and the opposite occurs as we descend. This can lead to common problems such as:

•     earaches—when the air pressure either side of your eardrum is different, placing pressure on the eardrum

•     headaches—can be caused by expanding air trapped in your sinuses

•     gut problems—just accept that you're going to fart more.

You can also feel more sleepy than usual. That's due to the body not being able to absorb as much oxygen from the cabin air at altitude than it would on the ground. Slowing down is the body's way of protecting itself, and this can make you feel sleepy.

The good news is that most of these problems won't necessarily be more pronounced on longer flights. They're mainly an issue as the plane climbs and descends.

3. You could develop blood clots

Blood clots, associated with being immobile for long periods, are usually a big concern for passengers. These include clots that form in the leg (deep vein thrombosis or DVT) that can travel to the lung (where it's known as a pulmonary embolism).

If you don't move around on the plane, and the more of the following risk factors you have, the greater the chance of blood clots developing:

•     older age

•     obesity

•     previous history or a family history of clots

•     certain types of clotting disorders

•     cancer

•     recent immobilisation or surgery

•     pregnancy or recently given birth

•     hormone replacement therapy or oral contraceptive pill.

According to a review in 2022, combining data from 18 studies, the longer you travel, the greater the risk of blood clots. The authors calculated there was a 26% higher risk for every two hours of air travel, starting after four hours.

So what about the risk of clots on these longer flights? We won't know for sure until we start studying passengers on them.

Until that evidence comes in, the current advice still applies. Keep moving, stay hydrated and limit alcohol consumption.

There's also evidence for wearing compression stockings to prevent blood clots. These stockings are said to promote blood flow in the legs and to help blood return to the heart. This would normally happen by muscle contractions from moving or walking.

A 2021 Cochrane review combined the results of nine trials with 2,637 participants who were randomised to wear compression stockings (or not) on flights lasting more than five hours.

No participants developed symptomatic DVTs. But there was evidence people who wore the stockings considerably reduced their chance of developing clots without symptoms, and we know that any clot can potentially grow, move and subsequently, cause symptoms.

So if you are concerned about your risk of developing blood clots, see your GP before you fly.

Usually if you do develop a blood clot, you won't know about it until after the flight, as the clot takes time to form and travel. So keep an eye out for symptoms after the flight—pain and swelling in a leg (often just the one), chest pain, coughing and shortness of breath. And seek emergency health care if you do.

4. Then there's jet lag, radiation, COVID

Then there's jet lag, which is a stranger to few of us. This is a disconnect between the time your body thinks it is and the time by the clock, as you cross time zones.

Longer flights mean you are more likely (but not always) to cross more time zones. Jet lag will usually become more problematic when you cross three or more, especially if you're travelling east.

And if you take long-haul flights very often, it's reasonable to assume that the longer you're in the air, the greater the exposure to cosmic radiation. As the name suggests, this is radiation that comes from space, which may increase the risk of cancer and reproductive issues. We don't know what level of exposure is safe.

However, unless you fly frequently it's unlikely to be a problem. If you're pregnant or have other concerns, have a chat to your GP before you fly.

And don't forget COVID. Take the usual precautions—wash your hands regularly, wear a mask and don't fly if you're unwell.

In a nutshell

Research into how the body reacts to these longer, non-stop flights between Australia and Europe is in its early stages. Teams in Australia are looking at this now.

Until then, if you're taking a regular long-haul flight, the advice is relatively simple.

Follow the advice the airlines give you, and see your GP before you travel if necessary. During flight, make that extra effort to move about the cabin, drink water, wear a mask and practise good hand hygiene.

And see a doctor immediately for any worrying symptoms after your flight, as blood clots can take hours or even days to form, grow and move along your veins.

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The term intermittent fasting covers several approaches, each based on different principles. It is important to note that no matter which method is used, the restrictions only affect food—never water—intake.

• The "Eat Stop Eat" method. Put forward by Brad Pilon in his book of the same name, the principle is to alternate days of normal eating and fasting, including two non-consecutive fasting days in a week.

• The 5:2 method. Developed in the 2000s by the doctors Michelle Harvie and Tony Howell, this alternates between five days of normal eating and two days (which can be consecutive) of 70-75% calorie reduction during the week.

• Time-restricted eating (also called time-restricted feeding). This is currently the most popular and most studied method. It consists of narrowing the food intake window to between 6 and 10 hours per day, and therefore fasting between 14 and 18 hours during the day.

Science's verdict?

Outcomes vary depending on the adopted strategy.

With the "Eat Stop Eat" and 5:2 approaches, relatively few scientific studies have been conducted. The little data we have available has shown they can effectively help us lose weight and improve certain metabolic parameters such as fasting blood glucose. For example, the nutritionist Surabhi Bhutani showed the use of the 5:2 method for three months resulted in a weight loss of 3-6 kg in participants.

However, both methods are very restrictive and can cause side effects on days of total fasting or severe caloric restriction—hunger, negative effects on mood, and risk of hypoglycaemia.

In the longer term, restriction also increases the risk of developing or worsening eating disorders, as well as yo-yo dieting. These patterns often appear after the individual has attempted to lose weight by restricting themselves: despite initial progress, the deprivation is likely to generate frustrations that will encourage the return of old eating habits.

The most studied method is the one with a daily food intake but limited in time. Two "time slots" are often observed:

• When food intake starts with breakfast and ends in the late afternoon—known as "early time-restricted feeding".

• When food intake starts with lunch—known as "late time-restricted feeding".

Typical day and foods to be favoured for practising time-limited eating. Credit: Anouk Charlot

This approach appears to improve metabolic regulation and slash the risk of metabolic diseases. However, these benefits vary according to the chosen time slot. When food intake starts in the morning, studies have observed weight loss and improvements in insulin sensitivity.

Conversely, there are fewer or no benefits to starting meals at midday and ending them in the evening. Ram Babu Singh's team (Halberg Hospital and Research Institute, India) also showed positive results in participants who ate only in the morning, and not in those who ate in the evening after 8 p.m.

Why such a difference?

Research suggests our internal clock and circadian rhythms may have something to do with it. Indeed, the benefits to only eating in the morning is that the periods of food intake and fasting coincide with our biological clock.

In our previous article, we explained that in response to light cycles, our body produces hormones in a cyclical way to adapt our food intake to the body's energy needs: the optimal period for eating is therefore from around 8 or 9 a.m. (when the sun rises) to 7 p.m. (when the sun starts to set, depending on the season).

Not eating breakfast and eating after 7 p.m. upsets circadian rhythms, and increases the risk of developing metabolic diseases.

However, while time-limited eating seems to be a good approach to metabolic health, much remains to be understood about how it works and how to optimise its effects. Work in 2022 showed no difference in terms of weight loss between opting for early- or late-morning eating. It did, however, have an effect on appetite during the day—this time to the advantage of the former.

And beyond the time of day when it seems preferable to eat, other factors may be at work that are not always measured in the studies carried out: quality and quantity of food absorbed, duration of the fasting period (which can extend from 12 to 20 hours per day), etc. It is also worth remembering every individual has his or her own metabolism and may respond differently to fasting. New, better controlled and more comprehensive studies are therefore needed to confirm the potential benefits of these methods and to understand the mechanisms involved in their effects.

In practice, what to do?

The most suitable method to avoid disrupting one's circadian clock (and thereby limiting the risk of frustration or eating disorders) appears to be time-limited food intake by synchronising meals with circadian rhythms.

Thus, a typical day could be organised with a hearty breakfast in the morning taking place between 6 and 8 a.m., a lunch around midday and finally bringing dinner forward so that it takes place between 4 and 6 p.m., depending on the season.

This is not necessarily easy to reconcile with one's social life. It can be complicated to practise intermittent fasting for a family, when one practises a sporting activity in the early evening or when one works in the evening until 7 or 8 p.m.

One solution would be to opt for a big breakfast and not too caloric a meal in the evening—preferably without carbs or sugars, so as not to risk shifting one's biological clock.

Chrono-nutrition

Chrononutrition is increasingly popular and intermittent fasting appears to effectively boost metabolic health. That said, we have seen it is not a panacea. And we must ensure that the periods of fasting and food intake are consistent with our biological clock.

In the face of many existing methods, and potential risks, patients and health professionals still face a lack of information. Further research is essential to better understand their effects. Currently, there is not yet a general consensus on the ideal time to eat/fast, or on the optimal duration of each period. Moreover, these parameters may differ from one person to another, depending on their genetic make-up, history and lifestyle. It is therefore important to consider the use of this dietary strategy with qualified health professionals, with the view of setting up a healthy and balanced diet that will limit the risk of complications.

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Gene therapy has made some recent progress—is it enough?

Experiments with paper airplanes reveal surprisingly complex aerodynamics

Researchers studying dry eye disease in mice have found that the condition can alter how the cornea heals itself. They have also identified potential treatments.

"We have drugs, but they only work well in about 10% to 15% of patients," said senior researcher Dr. Rajendra Apte, a professor at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "In this study involving genes that are key to eye health, we identified potential targets for treatment that appear different in dry eyes than in healthy eyes."

Tens of millions of people around the world, including 15 million in the United States, have eye pain and blurred vision as a result of complications and injury associated with dry eye disease, Apte said in a university news release.

"By targeting these proteins, we may be able to more successfully treat or even prevent those injuries," he said.

In dry eye disease, the eye can't provide adequate lubrication with natural tears. Various types of drops can help replace those, but when the eyes are dry, the cornea is more susceptible to injury.

The researchers found that proteins made by stem cells that regenerate the cornea may be new targets for treating and preventing such injuries.

To study this, the investigators analyzed genes expressed by the cornea in several mouse models. They looked at dry eye disease, diabetes and other conditions.

In mice with dry eye, the cornea activated a gene called SPARC. Higher levels of the SPARC protein were associated with better healing.

"We conducted single-cell RNA sequencing to identify genes important to maintaining the health of the cornea, and we believe that a few of them, particularly SPARC, may provide potential therapeutic targets for treating dry eye disease and corneal injury," said first author Joseph Lin, an MD/PhD student in Apte's lab.

"These stem cells are important and resilient and a key reason corneal transplantation works so well," Apte said. "If the proteins we've identified don't pan out as therapies to activate these cells in people with dry eye syndrome, we may even be able to transplant engineered limbal stem cells to prevent corneal injury in patients with dry eyes."

However, research in animals often yields different results in humans.

The findings were published online Jan. 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

© HealthDay

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This certainly isn't the first time we've seen a Tesla EV in such a horrific crash only to find out that while the car was obliterated, the people inside somehow survived. As you can see, the Tesla model plunged 250 feet off a cliff, leaving it almost unidentifiable, yet there were no casualties.

The Tesla had four passengers inside when it reportedly drove off the high cliff At Devil's Slide, California. There were two adults and two children inside. First responders called it a miracle that anyone could survive such a crash. The adults had more critical injuries and were airlifted to the hospital. Meanwhile, the four- and nine-year-old children only had "mild to moderate" injuries.

A Battalion Chief, Brian Pottenger, shared with the media that this type of accident is something that happens all too often in the area. He added, "this was nothing short of a miracle that they survived.”

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A new battery management system could boost EV range by 20 percent

If you're one of the 223 million Netflix subscribers or 47 million Hulu subscribers, I have good news. You don't have to feel guilty binge-watching your favorite series, movies, or documentaries. You are likely to get more from jotting down observations than writing out your New Year's resolutions.

As a life coach, I'm always on the hunt for easy ways for busy clients to make improvements in their lives. Many will tell me they have little energy after a day of meetings at work or chasing after kids at home. Instead of tackling things they "should" be doing, they only want to wind down and be entertained.

I could relate. I also noticed that watching an episode of a popular K-drama didn't leave me feeling as bad or as empty as scrolling through social media did.

I started suggesting that clients permit themselves to watch programs they would enjoy and then record what they watched and how it made them feel. Not only did they look forward to doing this exercise, but they were also surprised at what it revealed about themselves and how it helped them make unexpected enhancements in their day-to-day lives.

 Observing them and reviewing notes of my viewing behavior, I realized we were harnessing the power of stories.

Why We’re Attracted to Stories

“Watching story is how we learn to be human. It is fundamentally important. I don’t think we should condescend to it and see it as junk behavior. It’s anything but,” says Will Storr, author of The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better.

In a phone conversation, he described how the first stories told were critical to survival. “Back in the day, there was no police service or judiciary or written law. We had to control each other’s behavior and keep everybody cooperating with tribal gossip.”

Storr delineated two functions of gossip. From reputation gossip, we learn who is good and who is bad, thus teaching us how to be. From strategy learning gossip, we learn how people succeed or fail, win or lose.

“The reason humans evolve language is to swap gossip. It’s thought that 65 percent of our conversation is gossip, and that’s true all around the world, for men and women. It’s universal. Even children begin to sort of gossip around the age of 2. As soon as they can speak, they start telling stories about other people.”

We are, of course, drawn to stories of protagonists who are similar to us or experiences that are similar to ours. We can learn from their stories. But we are also capable of relating to stories of those we have little in common with. Lisa Cron, the author of three books on the power of story, including her latest, Story or Die: How to Use Brain Science to Engage, Persuade, and Change Minds in Business and in Life, argues that we’re not attracted to logic or plot. “We come to story to watch something in someone’s belief system shift and see the consequence of that. Emotion telegraphs meaning to us.”

“Story is the world’s first virtual reality, minus the geeky visor,” says Cron. “They’ve done fMRI studies that show when you’re lost in the story, the same areas of your brain light up as if you were doing what the protagonist is doing.”

This explains why despite having nothing in common with war veteran David Budd in Bodyguard, I wept with relief when he finally sought out treatment for his PTSD.

“We’re affected by stories every minute of the day, and almost always we’re not aware of it,” said Cron. 

Therefore, we can uncover hidden feelings and desires and learn unexpected lessons when we allow ourselves to watch a movie we’re drawn to. For example, I had long known that in every Korean series or movie, there is always a struggle between the haves and the have-nots. Think of Parasite, Crash Landing on You, and Itaewon Class. It’s a national obsession. But recently I noticed that even when I’m watching American films and series, I’m attracted to the parts that portray class struggle, even when it is not central to the story, as in Gilmore Girls, White Lotus, or Knives Out. As a result, I’ve started to be more conscious of how I perceive and relate to others whom I perceive as richer or poorer than me.

Meanwhile, one client began to understand why she found predictable rom-coms so relaxing and appealing. After spending her day mediating conflicts between warring parties at work, she appreciates not only that the endings are happy but that all the loose ends are neatly tied. Now, rather than be embarrassed by what she is watching, she gives herself permission to enjoy her evening and nourish herself rather than go to bed defeated and depleted.

How to Capitalize on Your Binge-Watching

It’s easy to get started.

First, make a simple record of what you watched. Record the date, the title, and maybe the episode number. If you have a bit more time, add some notes to remind you of what you saw.

Another way to get started with this exercise is to start a list of shows you recall enjoying in the past.

Then, later, maybe the next morning, take a few moments to answer some questions:

• What part, if any, did you most enjoy?
• What, if anything, captured your attention or curiosity?
• When did you feel any strong emotions? (This was suggested by Storr.)

Keep your answers short to make this easy. You may find as you go that you'd like to record other information relevant to you. For example, if you find you love watching cooking shows, you may want to make note of a technique you want to try. You may also want to start a separate list of titles you want to watch next.

After a couple of weeks or more, take a moment to look back at what you've captured. Look for themes and through lines. Then, explore ways to go deeper. For example, you may find that you want to do some research about the protagonist or actor, about different ways similar stories are told, or more about the subject matter.

 There are a variety of tools you can use to keep track of viewing behavior. The keys are to find what works for you and avoid friction.

Digital Tools

If you prefer something digital, I suggest something easily accessible like the native Notes app on your iPhone or Google Keep on your Android phone. Evernote is another popular option you may already be using. For these, I suggest adding a new folder and creating a new note for each day.

If you’re already streaming on your computer and like the idea of using rows for each day and columns for different pieces of information, you could use spreadsheet software you’re already familiar with, such as Microsoft Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets. If you don’t mind learning a new program and want to get a bit more creative, you might like Notion, which is highly customizable and can accommodate longer pieces of text, attachments, or images.

There are also journal apps that make it easy to add daily entries, like Day One or Diaro.

To keep your entries short and searchable, be consistent with the terms you use, or try hashtags. For example, if you start noticing that you are drawn to stories about con artists or sibling rivalry, you could add #conartist or #siblingrivalry to your entry.

Non-Digital Tools

To avoid getting distracted by your digital device while you’re watching, note cards are a great option. You could add the date and what you watched along with maybe the genre on one side and then your reflections on the other. This option is helpful if you want to sort your cards in different ways to look for different themes.

If you use a notebook, I suggest a small one, using both pages when open. Put the date and title on the left-side page and add observations to the right. This allows you to find entries by looking at one side of your notebook while flipping through it quickly.

The great thing about this exercise is that you can expand it to other types of stories beyond television and film. You can add books, poems, songs, plays, and musicals. You might also want to add stories you hear on a podcast or see in the news.

So instead of resolving to exercise more, only to end up with an unused gym membership, try keeping track of your viewing habits this holiday season. Rather than feel ashamed or label yourself a “couch potato,” enjoy your time with story and harness its power.

Why Binge-Watching Is Better Than Setting New Year's Resolutions

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According to special relativity, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light – an object with mass would require more and more energy to accelerate closer and closer to the speed of light without actually reaching it. However, theoretical approaches can extend relativity to include particles and observers moving faster than the speed of light. Not only it is possible to do that without causing paradoxes, but there are some intriguing consequences for physics both slower and faster than the speed of light.

Relativity describes the universe with something called a metric – in the case of our cosmos, which is a 3+1 space-time continuum, with three space dimensions and one time dimension. There are other metrics out there that physicists can play with. In the standard one, the only difference between space and time is a minus sign in some of the equations. There are also some other important requirements: The fact that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant, but also that the laws of physics are the same and all the inertial observers are equal.

Would that work if an observer was moving faster than the speed of light? It turns out that theoretically that is possible, but with a caveat. The metric would have to feature a single dimension of space and three dimensions of time. So, from the point of view of such an observer, a regular particle moving through our three-dimensional space will be actually “aging” in three different directions of time.

Now that seems like some sci-fi gobbledygook, but the equations not only are consistent and don’t create paradoxes, but they also end up reproducing some crucial descriptions of quantum mechanics. The particles, from their point of view, simply behave according to the principle of superposition. It doesn’t require the speed of light in a vacuum to be different, just that superluminal observers exist (at least theoretically).  

"For a superluminal observer, the classical Newtonian point particle ceases to make sense, and the field becomes the only quantity that can be used to describe the physical world," Professor Andrzej Dragan, from the University of Warsaw and the National University of Singapore, said in a statement. 

"Until recently it was generally believed that postulates underlying quantum theory are fundamental and cannot be derived from anything more basic. In this work we showed that the justification of quantum theory using extended relativity [...] can be naturally generalized to 1 + 3 spacetime and such an extension leads to the field-theoretic formulation of the quantum theory. This justifies, or at least provides a plausibility argument, why this extension is not just an eccentric thought exercise, but reflects something fundamental about symmetries of laws of physics," write the authors in the publication.

This intriguing connection between relativity and quantum mechanics is definitely worth exploring more, as might provide new insights into either field of study. The work is clearly theoretical and the applications are not about finding some particles that can move faster than the speed of light, unfortunately.

"The mere experimental discovery of a new fundamental particle is a feat worthy of the Nobel Prize and feasible in a large research team using the latest experimental techniques. However, we hope to apply our results to a better understanding of the phenomenon of spontaneous symmetry breaking associated with the mass of the Higgs particle and other particles in the Standard Model, especially in the early universe," explained professor Krzysztof Turzyński.

The work is published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity.

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Artworks by Indigenous Australians, some dating back tens of thousands of years, have suffered damage recently from mining operations, climate change, and now deliberate vandalism. Irreparable damage to Koonalda Cave on the Nullarbor Plain suggests no part of the country is safe, even when there is no money to be made. For the traditional owners, the damage has been compounded by insensitivity after its discovery. 

“Don’t look now, but this is a death cave” was scratched into the Koonalda’s rock, defacing artworks stretching back tens of thousands of years. Archaeologist Keryn Walshe told The Guardian: “The vandals caused a huge amount of damage. The art is not recoverable.”

“Koonalda is one of our most important Whale Dreaming songline places of art and one of the last of its kind on this planet," senior elder of the Mirning People Uncle Bunna Lawrie said in a statement provided to IFLScience. "All of our Elders are devastated, shocked and hurt by the recent desecration of this site.”

The vandalism has met with universal condemnation, but even those outraged haven’t necessarily done a good job of respecting the Mirning People’s connection to the site. The Mirning Cultural Group told IFLScience the Mirning Elders “Only found out about the desecration through the media.” Many media outlets have shared images of the damage, in breach of protocols regarding showing photographs from inside the caves. Permission was not sought from Mirning Elders, although the photograph has been wrongly credited to them. Other outlets have quoted an individual and incorrectly identified him as being a Mirning Elder.

Australia is rich in cave art,  but Koonalda is distinctive. The rock is so soft that instead of painting it, Indigenous Australians carved it with their fingers. Some of the carving has been dated to 22,000 years, putting it close to the peak of the last Ice Age, and occupation may go back much further. As the Mirning Cultural Group noted to IFLScience, at the time much of what is now the Great Australian Bight was a coastal plain that was part of the Mirning people’s hunting grounds. Sites such as Koonalda have assisted transmission of stories from that time over almost a thousand generations.

The Bunda cliffs are where the Nullarbor meets the sea, but once the area to the south was a vast coastal plain. Image Credit: Bill Doyle, provided by the Mirning Cultural Group    

The sacred art has also contributed to non-Indigenous Australians’ understanding of the continent’s true history. In 1956, archaeologist Dr Alexander Gallus reported the art, the first time Europeans had become aware of Australian Indigenous art in a place sunlight does not reach. 

Gallus measured the age of the markings and nearby remains at 22,000 years, almost tripling the 8,700 year-old record for human occupation in Australia at the time. Although numerous sites two to three times as old have been identified since, the finding played an important role in recognition of Indigenous culture’s deep age.

“We are in mourning for our sacred place. Koonalda is like our ancestor. Our ancestor left his spirit in the wall, of the story, of the songline,” Lawrie said.

Although on Australia’s National Heritage list since 2014, Koonalda Caves were not internationally, or even nationally famous, prior to the attack. Located slightly closer to Adelaide than Perth, either way it's at least a 12-hour drive from a major city.

Located in Nullarbor National Park, the site has not been developed for tourism, reflecting its extreme fragility and the Mirning’s wishes.

The Nullarbor plain living up to its name, and revealing the beauty that exists above the ground hear the valandalized cave. Image Credit: Bill Doyle, provided by the Mirning Cultural Group

The nearest “town” (population 53) is more than an hour’s drive away, and a substantial diversion even for someone passing on the highway. Although the motivation remains unknown, the vandalism was not a spontaneous act; it would have required forethought just to reach the site. 

Since 2018 the Mirning people have appealed to the South Australian government to secure the site to prevent entry, but this had not occurred. Access works against the traditional custodian’s wishes may be the cause of a collapse at the cave’s entrance.

Attacks on Indigenous artworks aren’t restricted to Australia. Native American petroglyphs in Utah had racist phrases scratched over them in 2021, for example. Three years earlier, a truck driver left deep scars on the World Heritage listed Nasca lines in an effort to avoid paying a toll.

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Emerging forms of thin-film device technologies that rely on alternative semiconductor materials, such as printable organics, nanocarbon allotropes, and metal oxides, could contribute to a more economically and environmentally sustainable internet of things (IoT), a KAUST-led international team suggests.

The IoT is set to have a major impact on daily life and many industries. It connects and facilitates data exchange between a multitude of smart objects of various shape and size — such as remote-controlled home security systems, self-driving cars equipped with sensors that detect obstacles on the road, and temperature-controlled factory equipment — over the internet and other sensing and communications networks.

This burgeoning hypernetwork is projected to reach trillions of devices by next decade, boosting the number of sensor nodes deployed in its platforms.

Current approaches used to power sensor nodes rely on battery technology, but batteries need regular replacement, which is costly and environmentally harmful over time. Also, the current global production of lithium for battery materials may not keep up with the increasing energy demand from the swelling number of sensors.

Wirelessly powered sensor nodes could help achieve a sustainable IoT by drawing energy from the environment using so-called energy harvesters, such as photovoltaic cells and radio-frequency (RF) energy harvesters, among other technologies. Large-area electronics could be key in enabling these power sources.

KAUST alumni Kalaivanan Loganathan, with Thomas Anthopoulos and coworkers, assessed the viability of various large-area electronic technologies and their potential to deliver ecofriendly, wirelessly powered IoT sensors.

Large-area electronics have recently emerged as an appealing alternative to conventional silicon-based technologies thanks to significant progress in solution-based processing, which has made devices and circuits easier to print on flexible, large-area substrates. They can be produced at low temperatures and on biodegradable substrates such as paper, which makes them more ecofriendly than their silicon-based counterparts.

Over the years, Anthopoulos’ team has developed a range of RF electronic components, including metal-oxide and organic polymer-based semiconductor devices known as Schottky diodes. “These devices are crucial components in wireless energy harvesters and ultimately dictate the performance and cost of the sensor nodes,” Loganathan says.

Key contributions from the KAUST team include scalable methods for manufacturing RF diodes to harvest energy reaching the 5G/6G frequency range. “Such technologies provide the needed building blocks toward a more sustainable way to power the billions of sensor nodes in the near future,” Anthopoulos says.

The team is investigating the monolithic integration of these low-power devices with antenna and sensors to showcase their true potential, Loganathan adds.

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