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and it’s not a solo takeaway on v-day
Oooooh, hello everybody. Today’s newsletter is a juicy one!
Before we dive in, I’d like to begin with a little disclaimer. While curating the newsletter this year, it’s been impossible to ignore that Elon Musk and Trump have dominated the front pages of pretty much every print and digital publication out there. And while it’s certainly important to pay attention to all the insane things they’re up to (we will be covering some of it in the future, as we have in the past), I think it’s also vital to shed light on interesting stories emerging from other sectors – including health, tech, culture, and environment news – which seem to be buried beneath the relentless onslaught of fear-mongering headlines as of late.
We all deserve a break from the constant stream madness. So, with that, I’m hopeful this edition can offer a different angle on current events.
Shall we?
😴 Health
Why do some people need less sleep? – popular science
For decades, scientists have been trying to figure out why some people thrive on less than 7 hours of sleep while others struggle to function even with a solid eight. Mounting research suggests that it could be down to four genetic mutations. The first mutation (DEC2) allows for shorter sleeps, the second (ADRB1) allows for enhanced wakefulness and easier wake-ups, the third (NPSR1) allows natural short sleepers to maintain cognitive function and avoid memory problems caused by sleep deprivation, and finally, the fourth mutation (mGluR1) allows its carriers to sleep less by increasing nerve cell activity in the brain. So yeah, it looks like your sleeping habits are probably genetic… don’t let anyone shame you for that weekend lie in. 😉
Are wellness festivals the new music festivals? – condé nast traveller
Some people go abroad for adventure, while others want to explore new cultures, try new cuisines, and chase the sun. But more and more, people are going on vacations with a goal of improving their overall health and mindset. Wellness festivals are growing in popularity, with eco-villages all over the world acting as a base for multi-day experiences that revolve around fitness classes, meditation sessions, panel discussions with experts on health and wellness, and much much more. These festivals aim to cultivate awareness of how our behaviours impact our lives, while allowing attendees to escape the stresses of their lives in blissful, far-away destinations. For health-conscious Gen Z, the popularity of wellness festivals could well define the next decade of their travel and potentially even their career choices.
🫒 Nature
As Israeli settlements continue to expand and dispossess Palestinians of their properties and traditions, the annual olive harvest (between September and November) is becoming more challenging to celebrate. Although settler violence is nothing new – Israeli settlers and forces are known to target Palestinian farmers and their olive groves – this activity has intensified since the start of the war in Gaza. Members of Rabbis for Peace have supported Palestinians during the olive harvest in an act of peace and coexistence, but their actions are not always enough. The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture and the Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem estimate that over 800,000 olive trees were uprooted between 1967 and 2011.
Climate change threatens to cover this city in sand – euronews
As the world’s climate gets hotter and drier, sandstorms in Mauritania are increasing in frequency. Large dunes have piled up on Chinguetti’s streets and inside people’s homes, submerging some buildings in entirely. This West African city is a famous trans-Saharan trading post, home to more than a dozen libraries containing thousands of ancient texts, including the region’s oldest Quranic texts and manuscripts, covering topics from law to mathematics and everything in between. Chinguetti is one of four UNESCO World Heritage sites in Mauritania, where only 0.5 per cent of land is considered farmable. Though tree-planting projects are striving to keep the encroaching sands at bay, they haven’t eased deep-rooted worries that the city could one day be buried entirely by the desert.
🤖 Tech
Combining technology from Meta, Pimeyes, and a ChatGPT-like tool, two university students managed to create facial recognition glasses in just four days. Their goal? To show how easy it would be to use AI to identify someone and retrieve their biographical information without the person realising it. Testing their design on the New York subway, they quickly discovered they were successful when the glasses indicated the name and profession of an underground passerby who confirmed these details. Though multiple investors have offered to fund further development of the student’s glasses, they said they did not want to commercialise the technology, only to show it was possible.
Is AI really thinking and reasoning, or just pretending to? – vox
Several AI companies now claim that their models are capable of genuine reasoning, as in the type of thinking humans engage in when trying to solve a problem. But is that true? After a long debate which involved comparing AI’s ‘thought process’ to that of humans, researchers have come up with a new term to describe AI system’s reasoning style. They’ve called it “jagged intelligence”. This name refers to the fact that although state-of-the-art AI models can successfully complete highly impressive tasks (like solving complex math problems in seconds) they often struggle with very basic problems.
💬 Culture
Social media has pretty much destroyed our ability to be comfortable with not knowing what our friends are up to all the time. In fact, FOMO is allegedly the leading cause of smartphone addition. Has all this exposure – from live posting your entire day to location sharing on SnapMaps and Find My Friends – ruined the experience of falling in love and staying in it? For those who date, a peek at someone’s Instagram could lead to judgements about who they are being made too quickly. For those in a long-term relationship, wearable tech offers the ability tracks your partner’s heart rate, body temperature, and emotional shifts in order to alert you to them. Are we supposed to know this much about each other? Have we forgotten how to embrace the mystery and ambiguity that comes with relationships at any stage?
The true cost of being single – thred
Has anyone else noticed that everything from health insurance, gym memberships, and holiday packages assume you’re booking for two? Whether it’s tax benefits to rent splitting, pretty much everything about modern life is built to favour couples. Dual-income households enjoy stability, shared expenses, and even better mortgage rates. Meanwhile, single people are left shouldering the cost of everything alone – often while earning less than their married counterparts. While some singles revel in financial autonomy, many more are just scraping by, burdened by a system that still assumes everyone will eventually pair off. With Valentine’s day behind us, one might argue this the true cost of being single.
