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SWEET HOMES, ALABAMA

SWEET HOMES, ALABAMA

BILL SMITH STEERS HIS MIDNIGHT SILVER TESLA X THROUGH THE STREETS OF DOWNTOWN BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA, AND PULLS INTO A LOW-RISE APARTMENT COMPLEX. “This used to be a brothel 100 years ago,” he says with a smile. Today, it’s a modern, renovated building, one of dozens in this old industrial city where his company, Landing, rents fully furnished flexible-lease apartments. A thin man with intense blue eyes, Smith, 36, steps into a sunny one-bedroom with a railroad layout. It goes for $1,800 a month, a 20% premium to what it would rent for empty. It’s decorated with innocuous furniture, inoffensive linens, even taupe dishware, all designed and manufactured by his team. “Someone wants to move into an apartment in five days, we have to be able to acquire it and make it beautiful in…

The Chrysler Brand Cull Is Coming

The Chrysler Brand Cull Is Coming

Like Mad Men’s fictional merger of clumsily surnamed ad agencies, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and Peugeot S.A. (PSA Group) have united their agglomeration of brands to produce a new corporation: Stellantis. That name would have Don Draper reaching for his Canadian Club; it’s more redolent of erectile-dysfunction ads than of anything automotive. But in a world with a hard-on for mergers and shareholders, the new company—valued at $52 billion when formed—brings the same old problems. First, what to do about stragglers such as Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Maserati, Lancia, Opel, DS, and Vauxhall. Some of these legacy brands, defenseless against nimbler rivals and electric disrupters, cannot survive. In a press conference on January 19, Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares—a former rally driver and PSA chief executive—insisted that no job or brand cuts…

THE FIVE WINNERS’ STORIES

THE FIVE WINNERS’ STORIES

ENAPTER Italian-based Enapter was founded by Sebastian-Justus Schmidt and Vaitea Cowan in 2017, to change the way we power our world. The company produces a scalable hydrogen generator, which uses anion exchange membrane (AEM) electrolysis to turn water into emission-free hydrogen using renewable electricity, replacing fossil fuels and paving the way to clean and green energy. Speaking to hello! following their win, co-founder Vaitea told us: “Once Emma Watson announced us as winners I froze with joy. I could not believe it and never experienced such emotions. As a team, we are ecstatic to have won the Earthshot Prize. We are urgently working to make green hydrogen affordable for all, and this recognition is a vote of confidence in the impact our AEM electrolyser technology can have. We are so proud…

Tables for Two: Dacha 46

Tables for Two: Dacha 46

Dacha 46 657 Washington Ave., Brooklyn When, early in their relationship, Trina Quinn gave her now wife, Jessica Quinn, a cookbook called “A Gift to Young Housewives,” first published in Russia in 1861, it was mostly a gag. Both women are professional chefs, and Jessica, a Long Island-born daughter of immigrants from Latvia and Ukraine, is fluent in Russian. The book’s instructions were intended as much for housewives as for their servants, who would be the ones actually preparing the roast goose stuffed with macaroni and the fish roulade. Jessica appreciated the joke but, at the time, didn’t bother studying the book closely. Neither she nor Trina imagined that, years later, it would become an emblem of their shared career. Jessica, who graduated from culinary school, traces her interest in food to her…

StarTracks

MAN OF THE HOUR Musician Jon Batiste, who was the night’s most-nominated artist (11 nods), walked away from the Las Vegas show on April 3 with five wins, including Album of the Year for We Are. “I don’t really do it for the awards, [but] I really am so grateful,” he said backstage. Batiste also revealed on Grammy day that he secretly married author Suleika Jaouad, his longtime girlfriend, in February, shortly after she was diagnosed with leukemia for a second time. “Life has ups and downs. And sometimes the ups and downs occur at the same time,” said Batiste. “It puts it in perspective.” MORE STARS WIN BIG! STARS SHINE BRIGHT TREND ALERT: PINK! From blush to fuchsia, pink was the hottest hue of the night STARS ON-SET SUITE LIFE New York, March 28 Spouses Sarah Jessica Parker…

StarTracks
HERE TO STAY

HERE TO STAY

On a terraced hillside, high above Mexico’s Pacific coast, sits a villa named Casa Torre. The residence—in an area near Jalisco developed by the late Italian banker Gian Franco Brignone and dubbed Costa Careyes (“tortoise shells” in Spanish)—is home to fashion-world bon vivants Sally and Michel Perrin. For Michel, the chairman of his family’s 130-year-old French leather-goods house, Perrin Paris, and his American expat wife, Sally, who serves as the heritage brand’s creative director, Careyes is more than a part-time escape, it’s a way of life. “It’s a place that has brought us great joy,” she says. They were introduced to Costa Careyes when they were invited down from Los Angeles for a birthday party 14 years ago. “It was a real watershed moment for us—we just fell in love with…

Masters Of the Universes

Before Joe and Anthony Russo were dreaming up film and TV franchises, they were part of the biggest one. The brothers directed two Captain America movies and two Avengers films, installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which together took in almost $7 billion in ticket sales. Now they’re the guys industry executives turn to when they want to create a cinematic universe of their own. Throughout most of the history of Hollywood, franchises were born out of success. The studios ordered up sequels only after a TV show or movie became a hit. But the money-minting capabilities of Marvel, which stitches together interlocking stories across some 20 movies so far, has inspired Hollywood to rethink its approach. “The blockbuster gave way to the franchise play,” says Donna Langley, the chairman of…

Masters Of the Universes

THE 25 MOST INNOVATIVE GADGETS

01 SAMSUNG GALAXY Z FOLD 3 Foldables aren’t the ultra-expensive, often-unreliable devices they used to be – they’re the future of mobiles, and the Galaxy Z Fold 3 is proof of it. Hold one of these handsets and you can’t fail to be impressed by the superior build quality, the combination of glass and metal, and of course the 7.6-inch main display that folds in half when required. That means you get the benefits of a smartphone and a tablet in the same piece of hardware: a massive screen to do all your gaming, movie watching, emailing and working on, but also a device that’s compact enough to fit in your pocket. It’s waterproof too this time around, with support for 5G and the Samsung S Pen stylus. From £1,599, samsung.com 02 MORPHÉE SLEEP…

THE 25 MOST INNOVATIVE GADGETS

Bright Young Thing

“I want no white walls.” THAT WAS THE FIRST DIRECTIVE KATI CURTIS’S clients gave when she began work on their 1930s Tudor in Brookline, Massachusetts (which Curtis found on Zillow and “convinced them to buy”). “That,” says the pattern-loving designer, “was music to my ears!” One hitch: The home’s original layout didn’t allow in much light, which could have caused a color-rich scheme to feel claustrophobic. “It was a very inward-looking building,” explains architect J.B. Clancy of ART Architects, who was hired to help give the home a more modern flow, “and it was cut up into tons of little spaces with no access to the outside.” Curtis and Clancy came up with an unconventional solution, carving out a central stairwell above the entryway. The space acts as a sort of interior…

Bright Young Thing

HISTORIC PERSPECTIVE

Renaissance woman in the truest sense, interior designer Sheila Bridges has hosted a TV show, published two books, and created the now-iconic Harlem Toile pattern every socially aware aesthete loves. The AD100 talent talks fast—ideas whirling out of her mind and mouth—and it can be tough to keep up. Searingly quick-witted, she somehow manages to balance charm, warmth, and humor without sacrificing her exacting eye. As layered as her interiors, this gracious spirit has used design as an avenue for experimentation and discovery for the last 30 years. “One of the things I really try to do in my interiors is to not use the same thing twice,” she says. There’s certainly no fear of repetition in a recent large project she completed in Bedford Hills, New York. Set on 23…

HISTORIC PERSPECTIVE
Julianna Margulies: What I Know Now

Julianna Margulies: What I Know Now

Julianna Margulies knew exactly what kind of parent she was—and wasn’t—going to be. When she and her husband, attorney Keith Lieberthal, 48, were expecting their son Kieran, now 13, the actress, 54, was determined not to repeat the patterns of her often absent father, Paul, an ad exec and writer who died in 2014, and free-spirit mother, Francesca. “One of the things I craved as a child was boundaries—I wanted someone to need me home at a certain hour. I wanted someone to check my homework,” says Margulies. “I really wasn’t parented enough.” As she details in her new memoir Sunshine Girl (see excerpt), she and sisters Alexandra and Rachel shuttled between homes on the East Coast and in Europe after her parents split when she was a baby. (“It…

IN A WIDE-RANGING INTERVIEW THE COUNTESS OF WESSEX ON MOTHERHOOD, MISSING PHILIP AND MAKING A DIFFERENCE

IN A WIDE-RANGING INTERVIEW THE COUNTESS OF WESSEX ON MOTHERHOOD, MISSING PHILIP AND MAKING A DIFFERENCE

The Countess of Wessex choked back tears last week as she spoke of how the Duke of Edinburgh’s death had left a “giant-sized hole” in the lives of the royal family. Sophie, 56, who was talking to presenter Naga Munchetty on BBC Radio 5 Live, also recalled that she was overcome with emotion when she returned to the spot in Scotland where she had taken a happy family portrait of the Queen and Prince Philip enjoying a picnic. Here is HELLO!’s selection of the highlights of the interview, in which the devoted mum opened up about her support for survivors of rape in conflict, her life with her children – Lady Louise Windsor, 17, and Viscount Severn, 13 – and how she became hooked on TV detective drama Line of Duty . Life…

The Market Has Doubts About Facebook, Too

The Market Has Doubts About Facebook, Too

Despite all Facebook Inc.’s problems—many of them put on display recently as journalists publish articles based on a trove of leaked documents—the company is one of the most valuable on Earth. Its nearly $900 billion market value makes it almost 10 times bigger than Twitter Inc. and 20 times bigger than Snapchat parent Snap Inc. But those headline numbers conceal an uncomfortable truth: Investors are less optimistic about Facebook’s financial prospects than they are about those of its social media rivals—and the broader market. The market values Facebook at 20 times its predicted earnings over the next year. This metric is a gauge of how healthy investors think a company’s business model is, and how much more it can grow. Facebook is priced at a huge discount to domestic rivals: Snap…

A Teen Lifeguard’s Unsolved Murder: A Killer on the Beach

High atop her perch on the worn wooden lifeguard chair at Comins Pond in Warren, Mass., Molly Bish could see kids splashing in the water, diving under the surface and building sandcastles on the tree-shaded beach. The fun-loving, athletic high school honor student was excited to be lifeguarding at the popular swimming spot—following in the footsteps of her older brother John, then 20, who had lifeguarded there for years before her. When he landed a different summer job, 16-year-old Molly jumped at the chance to step in, even though her mom, Magi, was apprehensive about her daughter manning the post at the secluded pond. “She reassured me,” Magi remembers. “She said, ‘Mom, I’m not worried.’” What Molly couldn’t see as she watched over the pond was the evil lurking in the…

A Teen Lifeguard’s Unsolved Murder: A Killer on the Beach

StarTracks

INSIDE NASHVILLE’S BIG NIGHT STARS ON-SET PRETTY LITTLE BABY Pretty Little Liars star Brant Daugherty and actress wife Kim welcomed their first child together, son Wilder David, on March 24, and they are already “obsessed” with him, Kim says. “It is such a magical feeling, knowing we created a life. We keep saying, ‘We made him!’” SAWEETIE TAKES THE STAGE Atlanta, April 17 Rapper Saweetie performed at the Triller Fight Club: Jake Paul vs. Ben Askren boxing match. CHRISTIAN’S NEW LOOK Sydney, April 18 Christian Bale showed off his newly shaved head during a run on the beach in Australia, where he’s filming Thor: Love and Thunder. AN X-FILES REUNION The X-Files stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny reunited in an April 18 selfie shared on Instagram. “Stella made a new friend today,” Anderson captioned the post, referring to her new…

StarTracks
Apple is at the top of its MacBook game–and the best may be yet to come

Apple is at the top of its MacBook game–and the best may be yet to come

We live in a wonderful era for Apple laptops. The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros provide desktop power and stunning HDR displays. The new M2 MacBook Air has now joined the family, with a similar striking design and the Air’s trademark smaller size and weight. After a dark period where Apple struggled with flawed laptop keyboards, a painful transition to USB-C, and an increasingly frustrating relationship with Intel, things haven’t looked this bright in quite some time. That’s why, as Apple looks on proudly at the new line of laptops it has fashioned over the past couple of years, I have only one request: More, please. LAPTOPS ARE THE BEST Let’s start with the facts. For decades, the overall percentage of new Macs sold that are laptops kept going up. The last time…

‘Re-commerce’ is Remaking Retail

‘Re-commerce’ is Remaking Retail

AMERICANS ARE SCOOPING UP secondhand items at a record pace, thanks to a surge in digital resale platforms like Poshmark, Depop, thredUP and The RealReal. Now more traditional retailers want in on the action. This year alone, Americans will spend almost $179 billion on secondhand goods, up 96 percent from 2015, according to research from Mercari and GlobalData. By 2030, those firms contend, that number will nearly double to $354 billion—a growth rate 3.2 times that of the retail sector as a whole. And it’s not just a small segment driving the pre-used market: Three quarters of us, the Mercari/GlobalData research shows, bought at least one secondhand item last year. Those numbers are only part of the reason well-known name-brand retailers are now diving into the “new-to-you” business. This embrace of secondhand…

The Easiest Summer Lunch

FOR MEAT LOVERS… Avo-Turkey Toast 1 toasted slice multigrain bread + 2 Tbs. avocado smash (see below) + 1 slice deli turkey + 5 half-moon slices tomato Avocado Smash: Place 1 avocado in a bowl and mash with a fork. Add 1 tsp. grated orange zest, 2 tsp. fresh tarragon, ¼ tsp. crushed red-pepper flakes (optional), and ¼ tsp. kosher salt. Mix to combine. Makes 4 servings. NUTRITION PER SERVING 201 calories; 11g protein; 10g fat (1g sat. fat); 22g carbs; 7g fiber; 2g sugar; 1mg iron; 13mg calcium; 438mg sodium Salami Bagel 1 toasted bagel half + 2 Tbs. herbed cream cheese (see below) + 2 slices salami Herbed Cream Cheese: Add ⅓ cup mix of fresh basil and flat-leaf parsley (chopped in a food processor); pulse to combine. Add 4 oz. cream cheese (at room temperature); pulse…

The Easiest Summer Lunch

Family Finances? You’ve Got This.

Make a Habit of Putting Away Some Rainy-Day Savings Let me get this out of the way first: The primary way to reduce money stress is to have a few months’ worth of emergency savings on hand. The basic math is to add up the cost of your monthly housing, food, utilities, and gas, and multiply that by at least three, ideally six. Saving this amount acts as a vital financial buffer if, say, you’re between jobs, need extra child care, or—oops, need a new roof. Saving all this money is a heavy lift for sure, so start slowly if need be. The key is to save on a recurring schedule. For example, automatically moving $20 a day into your rainy-day fund for a full year amounts to more than $7,000. Throw…

Family Finances? You’ve Got This.

drop-off jitters

MY DAUGHTER, Charlotte, used to cheer whenever she had soccer, ballet, or preschool, and goodbyes were easy. But that changed once she turned 3. She cried before school, refused to dance unless I held her hand, and wouldn’t leave her dad during soccer. Many things can shake a 3- or 4-year-old’s sense of security and make her feel an intensified longing for her caregivers, says Margret Nickels, Ph.D., a psychologist and director of the Center for Children and Families at the Erikson Institute, in Chicago. Anything from having a new sitter, seeing parental conflict, or even being overscheduled can make a preschooler extra-clingy. While a toddler may be upset when a parent leaves for work, a preschooler can anticipate separations. “She knows that on Monday mornings she goes to Grandma’s house,” says…

Ice Capades

CHEF ASHLEY CHRISTENSEN and food writer Kaitlyn Goalen warmed up to their freezer big-time after collaborating on a cookbook for Poole’s, Christensen’s beloved Raleigh, North Carolina, diner. The couple ended up with a gold mine of extra goodies from recipe testing—think béchamel, compound butters, and meat and vegetable stocks. “We froze a lot of those leftovers and spent the next year using them up, which turned into a fun way to make our home cooking much more delicious,” says Goalen. In It’s Always Freezer Season (Ten Speed Press) they share their expertise, and the contents of their shelves. “It’s not all waffles and pints of ice cream,” says Christensen (though they do offer a mean sage-and-sausage-waffle recipe). One section of the book is devoted to savvy storage tips—we highlight a…

Ice Capades
navigate the beauty aisle

navigate the beauty aisle

Midwest Must-Haves 1 Welcome matte When Chicago makeup artist Jenny Patinkin wants to test-drive new colors, she heads to the NYX display. “Everything is great quality and affordable,” says Patinkin, who currently loves this “happy matte pink lip” formula. NYX Soft Matte Lip Cream in Istanbul, $6 2 Multitasking mainstay “I have a small tube of this salve in pretty much every drawer and pocket,” says Patinkin, who turns to it to hydrate lips, soften rough cuticles, and soothe windburn. She adds: “I even use it to add a sheen to my lids.” Aquaphor Healing Ointment, $6 for two 3 Sensitive-skin savior “I recommend this hydrator to everyone,” says Laura Stitle, M.D., a dermatologist in Greenwood, Indiana. It’s free of the ingredients that often irritate skin and is “so safe you can put it on your…

Everybody Wins

HOME RUNS “These intricately hand-carved and -dyed wooden trays make serving holiday drinks even more elegant.”—style director Tanya Graff SMALL VICTORIES “Art supplies are my go-to gift for kids. These colorful pastels from a century-old company will be hits with my daughters.”—creative director Abbey Kuster-Prokell KITCHEN ALL-STARS “These will make my mom’s legendary pizzelle cookies the high point of the dessert table.”—art director James Maikowski“This has become my favorite pan for nearly every cooking task. I especially love that it can go straight from stove top to table!”—senior food editor Lauryn Tyrell STYLE SCORES “My fashion-loving 23-year-old niece in Chicago will look so polished in this, and it will keep her toasty-warm all winter.”—executive editor Jennie Tung SLAM DUNKS COURTESY OF MANUFACTURERS (1, 2, 4–7, 10). COURTESY OF MANUFACTURERS (2–6, 8–10, 12). PETER ARDITO (13); COURTESY OF MANUFACTURERS (1–4,…

Everybody Wins

The Insider’s Guide to Checkups

EARLY IN the pandemic, many families put doctors’ visits that weren’t crucial on hold, and there was a 53 percent drop in kids’ annual checkups, according to a study in Academic Pediatrics. Few parents were eager to enter a waiting room where they could potentially get infected with COVID-19. And given how often standard checkups seem to fly by in a flash (“It’s over?”), it may have felt as if you weren’t missing much. Sick visits, too, were way down—an added benefit of mask wearing, social distancing, and frequent handwashing, which reduced the spread of typical kid illnesses like colds and strep throat. But we’re seeing the light at the end of the tunnel now, and returning to regular well visits is essential, health experts say. Not only have pediatricians been concerned…

The Insider’s Guide to Checkups
How to keep kids safe

How to keep kids safe

With the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine newly given emergency-use authorization for children 5 to 11, many parents are asking the question: Should we vaccinate our kids? Many of them may have already made up their mind. Some of those arguing against vaccinating kids make the case that COVID-19 typically does not cause severe illness among children with healthy immune systems. Thankfully, purely as a percentage of total cases, it does hold true. To date, around 6 million children in the U.S. have contracted this coronavirus, which has led to more than 65,000 hospitalizations and 897 deaths. These numbers pale in comparison to the over 3 million hospitalizations among U.S. adults, and a staggering 754,000 deaths. The low rates of complications and severe illness from COVID-19 in children are the exact data needed to…

Eastern Influence

“It’s quite simple to create delicious Asian meals using everyday good-for-you ingredients and easy cooking techniques,” says Hetty McKinnon, the author of To Asia, With Love, a collection of “Asian(ish)” vegetarian recipes inspired by the home-cooked Cantonese food of her childhood and the breadth of flavors from the continent. One key method to ensuring delicious vegetables every time: combining heat plus speed. “The basic tenet is high heat and fast cooking. This gives vegetables a hint of smoky flavor while they retain their vibrant color and crisp bite,” McKinnon says. And don’t worry about using the “right” pan: “There’s no need for a wok; I usually use a cast-iron skillet to stir-fry,” she says. “Honestly, use whatever pan you have—just make sure to get it nice and hot before adding…

Eastern Influence

Make It Tonight

SESAME SOBA AND VEGETABLE NOODLES Zucchini and summer squash get spiralized and tossed with soba noodles and a tangy citrus vinaigrette for a veggie-packed noodle bowl that’s just as delicious served cold or at room temperature. If you don’t have a spiralizer, use a julienne vegetable peeler to cut the squash into long, thin strips. SERVES 4 1 medium yellow squash, spiralized into medium-thick “noodles”1 medium zucchini, spiralized into medium-thick “noodles”1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels8 oz. soba noodles¼ cup ponzu sauce2 Tbs. tahini2 Tbs. toasted sesame oil1 Tbs. rice vinegar¼ tsp. kosher salt1 pint cherry tomatoes, halved3 scallions2 tsp. sesame seeds, for garnish Place the vegetable noodles and the corn in a large colander. In a large pot of water, cook the soba noodles according to package directions. Pour over the…

Make It Tonight

DAWN OF THE STEM CELL REVOLUTION?

FOR MORE THAN TWO decades, experts have prophesied that stem cells will someday revolutionize medicine. While adult stem cells have long been used to treat a handful of blood and immune disorders, the excitement has centered on two more versatile varieties: embryonic stem cells (ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), both of which can be transformed into any cell type in the body. Google “the promise of stem cells,” and you’ll get at least 200,000 hits, involving ailments ranging from diabetes to neurodegenerative disorders. So far, however, no one has managed to translate that potential into a practical therapy. In 2020, a string of breakthroughs suggested that the revolution may finally be near. The most dramatic news came in May, when the New England Journal of Medicine published the first case…

DAWN OF THE STEM CELL REVOLUTION?
Learning a Language Literally Changes Your Brain

Learning a Language Literally Changes Your Brain

If you’ve ever learned a new language — or tried to — you know how difficult it can be. Native languages seem almost built-in. We soak them up naturally when we’re very young. But learning a new language, especially after early childhood, can be a huge task, burdened by long vocabulary lists and genders to memorize, complex cases and troublesome tenses to master. Of course, it’s worth the effort. In today’s interconnected world, learning a new language can change your life. It will certainly change your brain. ALTERNATE ROUTES Learning anything changes your brain, at least a little bit. But learning a language does it in high gear. John Grundy, a neuroscientist at Iowa State University who specializes in bilingualism and the brain, explains that learning a new language causes extensive neuroplasticity in…

An Eye for Ants

An Eye for Ants

The night after their wedding in 1954, my grandparents sat on the bed in their motel room, counting the cash in my grandpa’s pockets. There was barely enough to open a bank account. So, the next morning, Eleanor Lowenthal — my grandmother — in desperate need of income to put her husband through graduate school, walked into the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. There, she convinced some of the most prominent scientists in the world that she was the perfect person to mount and catalog their burgeoning ant collection. At the time, a promising graduate student named E.O. Wilson was coming up in the department. Wilson, who passed away in December 2021 at the age of 92, was called the “father of biodiversity” and the “heir of Darwin.” The myrmecologist —an…

Blood Work

Blood Work

Late one night in 1982, a Yale University medical student named Martin Yarmush witnessed a harrowing scene at a local hospital. A toddler was admitted, and several nurses attempted to insert an IV needle into one of the child’s tiny veins. Each time they missed the vessel, the child screamed more shrilly, and the mother grew more worried. There has to be a better way, thought Yarmush, now a professor of biomedical engineering at Rutgers University. The incident changed his outlook on medicine. Thoroughly unnerved by the anguish he’d witnessed, Yarmush started to imagine what would happen if the process of drawing blood could be automated. At the time, automation was found primarily on assembly lines for cars, where robots were so powerful and dangerous that they were bolted to the ground…

CHATBOTS HAVE ARRIVED

Reclining on a therapist’s couch as they scribble away on a notepad may soon become more of a rarity. For starters, a growing shortage of mental health professionals could make conventional therapy more difficult to find: Right now, the U.S. needs over 6,300 additional providers to accommodate the current demand. And as of spring 2021, over a third of Americans lived in regions with relatively low access to such care, a phenomenon that’s more pronounced in rural areas. But a growing crop of artificial intelligence technologies might be able to address those needs. Today, anyone with a smartphone can access conversational agent phone apps, or chatbots, meant to help users cope with the anxieties of daily life. These AI language-processing systems can imitate human discussion via text — in this case,…

CHATBOTS HAVE ARRIVED
TARGETING TYPHOONS

TARGETING TYPHOONS

Taiga Mitsuyuki, a marine systems engineer at Yokohama National University in Japan, holds a small plastic model in his hands. The 3D-printed ship, sporting twin hulls and rigid sails mounted on an A-frame, was built to illustrate a seemingly impossible purpose. If a full-scale version of the boat is built, it could draw energy from one of nature’s most destructive forces. Mitsuyuki and his colleagues have high hopes for such a vessel: The scientists want to make storm engineering a real prospect by 2050. Once deployed, these ships would enable the team to capture and store a typhoon’s energy with propellers and batteries. At the same time, an accompanying drone armada would inject a cooling agent into the storm, helping to weaken it. This mission feels increasingly vital as storms hitting Japan…

GUT FEELING

“BACTERIA IN YOUR GUT PRODUCE ABOUT 90 PERCENT OF THE SEROTONIN IN YOUR BODY — THE SAME HAPPY HORMONE THAT REGULATES YOUR MOODS.” Fielding the volley of work messages became a Sisyphean task. “There’s always the overriding fear that I’m not going to come out of it, that I’m always going to feel this way,” Peters says. “That probably is the scariest thing.” Peters, 50, had read about mood probiotics, gut bacterial strains marketed to help with depression and anxiety, but never felt like they were for him. “I was very skeptical,” he says. When his wife, who was battling panic attacks, tried mood probiotics and saw her episodes diminish, he began to reconsider. After his depression symptoms returned last summer, and the Prozac he’d tried in the past had lost its…

GUT FEELING

A Pretty Good Teacher, For A Cat

Gwyn, my youngest daughter, helped Tiger as we drove down the country road to the vet’s on what was to be his last Friday morning. Privately, both of us nursed a forlorn hope. We joked and laughed, trying to ignore the spectre that hovered over the cat sitting quietly in her arms. At 16, Tiger was old for a cat. In quiet dignity, he let Gwyn pet him, perhaps understanding that this was a special trip. I glanced at the two as I drove, and thought back to the day when Tiger first entered our lives. He had been a Christmas present to my second son. Brian, at six, wanted something that was his alone, something not handed down – as were his clothes and toys – from his older brother. Sadly,…

A Pretty Good Teacher, For A Cat

Brad Paisley & Kimberly Williams-Paisley: ‘You Have to Focus on the Love & Laughter’

The moment the year 2020 went from unusual to down-right weird for Brad Paisley may have been when the country star found himself doing surgery on his 11-year-old son’s puffer fish. Puffers’ teeth can sometimes grow so long they can’t eat, and this one was in dire need of a tooth trim. “Brad was looking up YouTube videos to find out what to do,” says his wife, actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley, 49, with a laugh. “I’ve never seen him nervous before, but his hand was shaking.” Their son Jasper had already lost two fish, and Brad, 48, didn’t want another casualty on his hands. After Internet consultation, he added drops of clove oil to a bucket of water (“to put the fish to sleep,” Kimberly explains) and went to work with a…

Brad Paisley & Kimberly Williams-Paisley: ‘You Have to Focus on the Love & Laughter’

THE invincible woman

Long before we met, I thought I knew who Selma Blair was. As a pop culture buff, I’d watched her work, and I believed I could surmise what her life was like through red carpet photos, magazine covers, and movie screens. I came of age, and Blair rose to stardom, in an era before social media, when fans put public figures on a pedestal and projected a grandeur onto their every moment. On a recent Saturday night Blair and I met over Zoom. She was perched in front of a blue wall in her Los Angeles home, wearing a dreamy sequined Molly Goddard dress, with one knee pulled to her chest. I was in a New York hotel room, wearing my best red lip and quickly learning how wrong I…

THE invincible woman
Winner: 2023 Genesis G90

Winner: 2023 Genesis G90

Cars are becoming a niche commodity. Once the dominant form of family transportation, the “car” as we once knew it now toes the endangered segment list. Just 11 years ago we enjoyed our biggest MotorTrend Car of the Year field ever, at 35 entrants—triple the number of SUV contestants that year. Four years later, new SUVs outnumbered cars (by one), and now for 2023 they more than doubled our COTY field. And as cars get rarer, they’re also becoming rarified. The few remaining producers of mainstream econoboxes, compacts, and midsize sedans fielded no newcomers this year. In their place was a roster of mostly sporty or luxurious contestants. Among them, one outshone its own competitive set to a degree we don’t always see in our Of The Year contests: the…

Prince William’s Mission: ‘This Is Just the Start’

Prince William’s Mission: ‘This Is Just the Start’

In keeping with royal protocol, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were the last to arrive at the Earthshot Prize ceremony, following their guests from the worlds of entertainment, sports and politics. After stepping out of their battery-powered Audi into the early-evening light at Alexandra Palace in London on Oct. 17, they exchanged a few quiet words as they strolled onto the green carpet. Kate—who rewore a 10-year-old gown, in keeping with the evening’s upcycled dress code—“obviously felt really proud with what William had achieved with this project,” says royal photographer Chris Jackson, who was backstage with the couple during the ceremony. “Seeing firsthand, you had this realization of the huge amount of work this was for him. It was a really special evening.” More than two years in the making,…

ON A NIGHT OF GLITZ, GLAMOUR AND GREEN ACTIVISM THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE PROVE A FORMIDABLE DUO AS THEY TEAM UP FOR THE FIRST EARTHSHOT PRIZE CEREMONY

‘The future is ours to determine and if we set our minds to it, nothing is impossible’The Duke Three years after being inspired to create the biggest environmental prize in history, the Duke of Cambridge saw his groundbreaking plan finally come together last week as he stepped out for the first Earthshot Prize ceremony. By his side for the historic occasion was his proud wife the Duchess, giving her loving support and lighting up the green carpet outside Alexandra Palace, London with her elegance and flair. They were joined by A-list stars from the world of music, film and activism on a night of green glamour. And HELLO! can take you behind the scenes with a series of exclusive backstage photos – taken by Getty Images royal photographer Chris Jackson for the Royal Foundation…

ON A NIGHT OF GLITZ, GLAMOUR AND GREEN ACTIVISM THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CAMBRIDGE PROVE A FORMIDABLE DUO AS THEY TEAM UP FOR THE FIRST EARTHSHOT PRIZE CEREMONY

A Nasty Fight Over Financial Regulation

Cornell Law School professor Saule Omarova was thrust into the spotlight in September when the Biden administration announced her nomination for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a branch of the Treasury Department that polices some 1,125 banks. The choice of the avowed liberal and outspoken finance industry critic united Wall Street and tiny community lenders against her. So far, a pretty standard Washington story. But things quickly grew uglier and more personal. Republican lawmakers raised the specter of a Soviet-style takeover of the finance system, leaning partly on an article Omarova wrote imagining a new role for the Federal Reserve as a kind of public bank—and by asking pointed questions about her biography. Omarova, who was born in Kazakhstan when it was part of the former Soviet Union…

A Nasty Fight Over Financial Regulation
Prototype Drive: 2023 Fisker Ocean

Prototype Drive: 2023 Fisker Ocean

Scott Fitzgerald once wrote there were no second acts in American lives. Nobody told Henrik Fisker. The Danish-born, Los Angeles–based car designer turned entrepreneur is now on his third attempt at building cars with his family name on the hood. In his early favor, our drive of a prototype of the electric-powered Fisker Ocean SUV, which should hit streets sometime in late 2023, suggests he might finally have a winner. At first acquaintance, the Ocean is a cool, classy, competent take on what is quickly becoming the planet’s hottest vehicle segment: the midsize electric-powered SUV. More important, though, behind this new Fisker EV is a manufacturing infrastructure with a proven track record in building everything from sports cars to sedans to luxury off-roaders in high volumes and to high quality standards. Every…

Jessica Walter (1941-2021): A Toast to a Funny Lady

In her long career Jessica Walter was never the go-to actress for what she called “Miss Vanilla Ice Cream” roles. “I was always a character actor,” she said. Then, at age 62, she landed the role of a lifetime—one without a single drop of vanilla. On the cult classic Arrested Development, a comedy of breakneck ingenuity that aired on Fox from 2003 to 2006 before being resurrected on Netflix from 2018 to 2019, she was Lucille Bluth, the poisonously sarcastic, martini-swilling matriarch of a dysfunctional family. (Iconic line: “I want to cry so bad, but I don’t think I can spare the moisture.”) Walter wasn’t actually fond of martinis—they caused her “little palpitations,” she said—but she adored everything that came with the part, including strangers recognizing her and imitating Lucille’s…

Jessica Walter (1941-2021): A Toast to a Funny Lady
THE CRUDE CLAIRVOYANT

THE CRUDE CLAIRVOYANT

JUST A COUPLE YEARS AFTER THE PRICE OF OIL BRIEFLY FELL BELOW $0, DUSTY, SWELTERING MIDLAND, TEXAS, IS A BOOMTOWN AGAIN. Hotels are at full capacity and there are 50% more rigs dotting the fields surrounding the West Texas city of 140,000, all thanks to crude prices above $100 per barrel. The Black Rifle Coffee shop (think Starbucks for gun aficionados) is bustling, and the wait for a table at Chuy’s Tex-Mex runs about two hours. Inside the 60,000-square-foot headquarters building of Midland’s CrownQuest Operating, chief executive Tim Dunn is relaxing in jeans, sneakers and a golf shirt. He’s surrounded by his three sons who work for the family business. Wally, 35, is a geologist; Luke, 42, heads engineering and operations; eldest son Lee, 43, is in business development. It’s a warm…

A Teen Athlete’s Shocking Death: Murder in a High School Gym?

Around Valdosta, Ga., everyone knew Kendrick Johnson for his love of sports. The 17-year-old Lowndes High School junior played basketball and football—and often stayed after school to shoot hoops in the gym or run on the track to boost his stamina. So when Kendrick didn’t arrive home after his school day Jan. 10, 2013, his mom, Jacquelyn, wasn’t too worried at first. He hadn’t cleared it with her, but she thought maybe he’d told his father, Kenneth, about his plans. When she discovered Kendrick hadn’t been in contact with his dad either, though, the panicked parents filed a missing-persons report. And the next morning Jacquelyn headed to the high school to alert staff that her son was missing. “The counselor hadn’t heard,” Jacquelyn recalls. “But then her phone rang. A…

A Teen Athlete’s Shocking Death: Murder in a High School Gym?
What Did Ruth Know and When Did She Know It?

What Did Ruth Know and When Did She Know It?

IT’S WELL KNOWN THAT BERNARD Madoff, now serving a 150-year prison sentence for a nearly $65 billion Ponzi scheme, is one of the greatest swindlers of all time. It’s less well known that he also ran an honest and successful market-making business, that he was one of the fathers of the NASDAQ stock market and that he pioneered the practice of trading firms paying retail brokers for the right to execute their customers’ trades (Robinhood, for instance, the company in the middle of the run-up of GameStop and other stocks this winter, receives payments from trading firms for its customer order flow). And it’s also less well known that other people who have never been prosecuted made far more from Madoff’s crimes than he ever did and that authorities had…

The Man Behind the Metaverse

Before the wave of stories published on Oct. 25 revealed new details about the troubling ways Facebook Inc. runs its social networks, the company had been hoping to spend the week talking about its plans to expand beyond that business. A major theme at its annual Connect conference on Oct. 28 will be the company’s ambitions for the so-called metaverse, a new digital space that it believes will supplant smartphone apps as the primary form of online interaction. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has said pursuing this path will transform Facebook, and has publicly set a goal of attracting 1 billion users to the metaverse by the end of the decade. The metaverse has played a prominent role in science fiction for decades—the digital universes of the novels Snow Crash and…

The Man Behind the Metaverse

Tom Jones: ‘Life Is More Precious Every Day’

When Tom Jones’s smash song “It’s Not Unusual” hit No. 1 in the U.K. and catapulted him to fame at age 24 in 1965, there was one question he’d constantly get asked: “How long do you think you’ll be able to keep up the momentum?” Now 80, the superstar singer chuckles over Zoom as he recalls the answer he repeated over and over. “‘I’ll sing until I’m 97.’ Why I said 97? I don’t know,” he muses from his London home. “But the closer I’m getting to it, I’m thinking it will be 97. Hopefully it’ll be 100!” If Jones’s life at 80 is any indication, his hope for two more decades of music may very well come true. While many stars have slowed down over the past year amid the…

Tom Jones: ‘Life Is More Precious Every Day’
A Scientist Takes on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Fighting to Save My Son

A Scientist Takes on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Fighting to Save My Son

Thirty minutes into a Zoom interview about their decade-long battle to keep their 37-year-old son Whitney Dafoe alive, Janet Dafoe shoots her husband, Ron Davis, an anxious glance. Whitney suffers from a severe case of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS)—an incurable disease that can leave its victims in a state of crippling fatigue and exhaustion. It’s been several hours since Whitney—who is bedridden and dependent on a feeding tube—last rang the tiny bell he uses to summon his parents when he needs something, and Janet, 71, can’t help but worry. “Sometimes when that happens, I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach that the next time I go in there, he’s going to be dead,” she says. She excuses herself for a moment to make sure Whitney’s all…

First Look: 2024 Cadillac Celestiq

First Look: 2024 Cadillac Celestiq

Is the 2024 Cadillac Celestiq for real? This head-turning, all-electric superluxury sedan is longer than the brand’s Escalade SUV and priced in a stratosphere Cadillac has long only dreamed of returning to. To wit: Pricing will start above the $300,000 threshold, but customers can easily add up to $100,000 more via customization, all but guaranteeing no two owners have the same exact car. The mere fact Cadillac is producing the Celestiq is nearly as surprising as the vehicle itself, which fulfills a longstanding desire to build a proper flagship. An idea became a vision, then a concept car, and now a fabulous final-form four-door that brings to life almost all the gee-whiz features envisioned along the way. The Celestiq has an estimated 600 hp and 640 lb-ft of torque, a 0–60…

Skinny RICH

Jennifer Straughan struggled with her weight for decades. By her mid-forties she had tried everything: diets, journaling her food intake, exercising constantly. “It controlled my life,” she says. “I would obsessively work out. I’d get up in the middle of the night if I forgot to enter something I’d eaten into my tracking app.” Worst of all, looking good was more than a vanity project. Straughan is a fitness instructor. At five-foot-three and hovering around 175 pounds, she found her clients becoming skeptical. About four years ago Straughan went for a regular checkup in her hometown of Toronto to a doctor who specialized in weight loss, and her stress all came pouring out. “For some reason, at that moment I just lost it and blurted out everything I’d struggled with for…

Skinny RICH

Ask Martha

How do I grow beautiful hydrangeas year after year? —Michelle Cannon, Red Hook, N.Y. Adored for their fluffy pom-pom flowers, these plants are nature’s cheerleaders, typically thriving throughout Zones 4 to 9. But the various types require unique care for lasting impact. To ensure that yours explode with beauty every summer, heed the advice of Ryan McEnaney, communications manager at Bailey’s Nursery, in St. Paul, Minnesota, and a spokesperson for ‘Endless Summer’ hydrangeas, on snipping, soaking, and feeding them. 1. Know Your Variety Most hydrangeas fall into one of three categories: panicle (cone-shaped, like those shown), smooth (large and snowball-like), or bigleaf (bigger leaves—you guessed it—in tighter globes or more open, lacy petals). The first two bloom on new growth; the last erupts on both new and old (i.e., the prior year’s branches). 2. Prune…

Ask Martha
The Ultimate Flavor Makers

The Ultimate Flavor Makers

“THE WAY FOOD FEELS IN your mouth plays an important role in how flavorful and enjoyable it is,” says Molly Baz, the author of Cook This Book. “So a key part of selecting ingredients for your dish involves thinking about what textures they’ll bring.” Reach for flavorful crunch from things like nuts, seeds, and croutons, she says. And for balance, add silkiness with a dollop of yogurt or a swirl of tahini. Turn the page to learn Baz’s techniques to make your meals more delicious and satisfying—and healthier too. Give It Some Bite “More often than not, dishes are lacking a super-crunchy texture that I call crispy crunchy,” Baz says. This texture is cooked separately from the main dish, which is why it often goes overlooked. Three of her quick and easy…

A TALE OF TWO LIZARDS

A TALE OF TWO LIZARDS

THE FOSSIL was heralded as the smallest dinosaur ever found. Named Oculudentavis and known from a skull encased in 99-million-year-old amber, the living animal would have been about the size of the smallest modern hummingbirds. Strange, then, that such a tiny fossil stirred the largest paleontological controversy of the year. From the time of the fossil’s March publication in Nature, outside experts were skeptical of the animal’s identity. The initial analysis by paleontologist Lida Xing and colleagues couldn’t pin down where Oculudentavis fit in relation to other dinosaurs; if anything, the fossil had characteristics that were both primitive and advanced for a dinosaur of its age. Rumors began to spread that there was a second specimen of the same animal that confirmed the creature’s identity as a lizard. Then, on July 22,…

SCRAP LAB DESIGN CHALLENGE

To order the kit used here (eight fat quarters and 1 yard white print) for $39.99 ppd. in U.S., contact Unraveled Quilt Store, unraveledquiltstore.com, 812/821-0309. meet the designers: 1 WALL QUILT Two blocks arranged in diagonal rows by color form a rainbow-inspired throw. DESIGNER AMANDA NIEDERHAUSER OF JEDI CRAFT GIRL (JEDICRAFTGIRL.COM) QUILT Finished size: 42½" square Finished blocks: 6" square MATERIALS Yardages and cutting instructions are based on 42" of usable fabric width. ❏ 1 yard white print (blocks) ❏ 18×21" piece (fat quarter) each rust print, orange print, yellow print, multicolor print, green print, blue print, teal print, and gold tone-on-tone (blocks) ❏ ½ yard gold print (binding) ❏ 2⅞ yards backing fabric ❏ 51"-square batting CUT FABRICS Cut pieces in the following order. From white print, cut: 75—2⅞" squares 99—2½" squares From rust print, cut: 3—2⅞" squares 4—2½×6½" strips 4—2½" squares From orange print, cut: 9—2⅞" squares…

SCRAP LAB DESIGN CHALLENGE

Treasure Hunt

Designer Anne Chessin’s clients spent years exploring various summer destinations to find the perfect one for their six-person and two-feline family. The kids deemed a hamlet in Upstate New York too isolating, while the parents, who work in high-stress careers, found a popular Long Island beach enclave to be frenetic. Then, they rented a cottage in an off-the-beaten-path part of southeastern Rhode Island. With its casual, coastal vibe and family-friendly atmosphere—the wife notes that there are not many places where an 8-year-old can hop on a bike and ride to the beach—the couple (and the kids!) declared it perfection. The couple called on Chessin to help build a summer house that would blend in with neighborhood cottages, many of which were handed down through generations. Something “throwbacky and simple,” as they…

Treasure Hunt

Blank Canvas

Drew Scott has a tip for renters like himself: “Go back to a place multiple times to see how the light is. You can’t change that,” he says. The wall-to-wall mirrors and heavily textured popcorn ceilings in this three-bedroom duplex in Los Angeles put him off so much he almost didn’t return. But the natural light flooding each space brought him back. After the landlord agreed to sand the ceilings and ditch the mirrors, Drew knew the 1920s space would be the prime backdrop for expressing his signature design aesthetic. As the creative force behind the Lone Fox brand, which includes a YouTube channel, Instagram account, blog, and online store, Drew uses the apartment as a style laboratory. Every few days he offers up a DIY project, a seasonal refresh, or…

Blank Canvas
The Helping Hormone

The Helping Hormone

EVEN IF IT’S BEEN a while since health class, you likely know how estrogen impacts reproductive health. Its levels rise as we reach puberty; then each month it surges, causing the uterine lining to prep for a potential fertilized egg, and drops, kick-starting menstruation. As the years go on, levels ricochet up and down in perimenopause and drop at menopause. And along the way, estrogen gets blamed for breakouts and breakups, mood dips and weight gains. But what else does the hormone do? The better question may be “What doesn’t it do?” “Estrogen touches basically every cell,” says Jen Gunter, MD, a gynecologist and author of The Menopause Manifesto (Citadel, 2021). “Until recently, we didn’t recognize its importance beyond reproduction,” adds Elizabeth Poynor, MD, a gynecologic surgeon and founder of the…

Do All Galaxies Have Dark Matter?

Do All Galaxies Have Dark Matter?

SOME 60 MILLION light-years from Earth — by the estimate of one team of researchers, anyway — a pair of strange galaxies is causing a cosmic stir. The bizarre galaxies, named NGC 1052-DF2 and NGC 1052-DF4 (or DF2 and DF4, for short), are the first known galaxies born without any significant amount of dark matter. If confirmed, their existence would throw a wrench into our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve. But, as Carl Sagan liked to say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. And, according to some researchers, the evidence for these dark-matter-deficient galaxies doesn’t hold up. THE CLAIM: NOTHING TO SEE HERE Astrophysicist Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University was certainly surprised when he first spotted DF2. After data from the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the Hubble…

De-stress Your Hair

De-stress Your Hair

Chemical Harm When you alter your hair color with dye or bleach or the texture with a perm solution or a relaxer, there is a chemical change within the strands’ inner core, called the cortex. Do this too often or intensely, and you can cause major damage. The extreme option: Cut as much off as you can, and start fresh. Or less drastic: “Get protein treatments at a salon or use protein-based products at home,” says trichologist and colorist David Adams. “But it’s a process. Expect a year to get strong, soft, and shiny hair again.” Try Redken Extreme Anti-snap Leave-In Treatment ($22, hair.com). Congested Scalp The biggest culprits: “Dry shampoo and root touch-up sprays,” Adams says. “These sit on the scalp and can clog your hair follicles.” A follicle typically has two…

Why Is Everyone So Starstruck by Starlink?

Starlink is catnip for PCMag readers. Just say the word, and they come a’clicking in the tens of thousands. The satellite ISP’s mystique is a combination of Elon Musk (an unappealingly named men’s cologne) and Americans’ hopeless desperation for better home internet choices. And at this point, it’s getting way out of hand. “SpaceX is aiming to one day deliver 10Gbps internet speeds over its satellite internet system,” our story reads, couching SpaceX’s ambitions in similar terms to my ambition to have ripped abs. Americans are desperate for better connectivity. They’ve given up on regulators, incumbent ISPs, and their own communities to provide them. They’re holding out for a hero (‘til the end of the night). They want Musk to be their streetwise Hercules, but he’s Loki. But not hot. Kind of…

Why Is Everyone So Starstruck by Starlink?
DID COVID HEAL NATURE?

DID COVID HEAL NATURE?

THE WELSH VILLAGE of Llandudno went quiet in March as stay-at-home orders began. Then the goats descended from the mountain. A wild herd of Kashmiri goats has lived near Llandudno for almost two centuries, and they sometimes come down from the Great Orme Mountain during inclement weather. But this spring, while the human world hit pause, they settled into town for a few days, munching on hedges and trotting down the empty streets. The goats joined a host of animal celebrities flooding the internet after they supposedly reclaimed urban areas: dolphins frolicking in Venice’s clean canals, elephants drunk on corn wine in a tea garden in China’s Yunnan province. Tweets announcing these events proclaimed that nature was recovering from years of abuse by humans, thanks to COVID-19 shutdowns. While the goats really did…

MATHEMATICIANS CRACK THE ZODIAC KILLER’S CIPHER

MATHEMATICIANS CRACK THE ZODIAC KILLER’S CIPHER

IN THE LATE 1960s, a serial killer self-identifying as “the Zodiac” killed at least five people in Northern California and claimed to have murdered more. In November 1969, the Zodiac killer sent a card to the San Francisco Chronicle containing a 340-character secret message that for more than 50 years went unsolved by numerous detectives, cryptography experts, amateur sleuths and curious others. Wonder no more, true-crime aficionados. After months of crunching code during the pandemic, three researchers on three different continents announced that they’d finally decoded the message. Further bolstering the claim, experts at the FBI verified the solution (and even tweeted about it). The encrypted message didn’t reveal the identity of the Zodiac killer, but it did bring decades of speculation, conspiracy theories and guesswork about this cipher to a dramatic…

HUMAN + NATURE ACCORDING TO WERNER HERZOG

HUMAN + NATURE ACCORDING TO WERNER HERZOG

In Werner Herzog’s latest film, Fireball: Visitors From Darker Worlds, you’ll find no diagrams, no green screen backdrops, no points where the narrator stops to define terms. It’s not your typical science documentary. Of course, you wouldn’t expect that approach from Herzog anyway. The prolific German film and opera director has created Grizzly Man, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Happy People: A Year in the Taiga and roughly 70 other films (fictional and documentary) over the past 50 years. He also made an acting appearance in The Mandalorian series — even though he’s never watched Star Wars. Most of his work, in one way or another, explores the recesses of human nature, often in the natural world. Herzog teamed up with volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer for a second time to make Fireball, released last…

Waves of Discovery

Waves of Discovery

Gravitational-wave astronomy is growing up. These ripples in the fabric of space-time are created by accelerating masses, which then travel outward from their origin at the speed of light. While anything with mass can produce a gravitational wave (GW), only the biggest events are currently detectable: either from two black holes colliding, or two neutron stars smashing into each other, or a combination of the two. The first GWs were detected in 2015 by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), when two black holes about 1.3 billion light-years away slammed into each other. LIGO consists of two interferometers — one in Louisiana, one in Washington state — which are L-shaped vacuum tunnels about 2.5 miles long on each side. A laser is shot from the crux of the L to mirrors…

Slim to None

Slim to None

Ann was a long-standing patient of mine whom I saw for severe gastroesophageal reflux disease, also known as GERD. She was extremely overweight and met medical criteria for morbid obesity. Doctors consider a patient morbidly obese when they are at least 100 pounds over their ideal body weight — and/or when their weight may significantly contribute to medical conditions, like diabetes, high blood pressure, or fatty liver disease, that put their life in danger. Ann was 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 250 pounds. She had been a slim 130-pound athlete as a teenager, but had gained weight with each of her pregnancies. During one of our clinic visits, the topic of her possibly undergoing surgery to lose weight came up. I was supportive of Ann seeing a surgeon who…

The Wisdom of Age

The Wisdom of Age

What are the ten most memorable experiences in your very well-lived life? • A happy childhood. I assisted my father in the farm and particularly enjoyed watching during harvest time. On weekends, the family had a picnic with the most delicious food, including fish caught fresh from the pond. • Listening to my mother play the piano. I would sit in one corner while she played and listen in one corner when she was tutoring someone. We travelled to Manila by train to buy piano pieces and I loved the busy Rizal Avenue. This, plus summer vacations in Pagsanjan sparked my interest in travel. • Going to college. I was given a scholarship grant and student assistantship by my Fabella relatives so I was able to go to college. Those years were spent…

'The Lost Kitchen’s' Erin French: Turning a Painful Past Into a Delicious New Life

The waterfall outside the Lost Kitchen, the restaurant Erin French opened in 2014, is a reminder of how far she’s come. “The first year we opened, I would stand at the stove and look out the window,” says French, who started as a home cook and turned Freedom, a remote Maine town with only 719 residents, into a world-famous foodie destination. “It was like, ‘Oh my God, I would have never gotten to this beautiful point without all of that pain.’ I kept telling myself that I had to cry all of these rivers to find one waterfall.” In 2013 French entered rehab to treat an addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs. At the time, she was in the dark depths of a troubled first marriage, which resulted in divorce, a…

'The Lost Kitchen’s' Erin French: Turning a Painful Past Into a Delicious New Life
LET THERE BE LIGHT

LET THERE BE LIGHT

The brownstone was big and beautiful, but there was a darkness at its core. Not an existential darkness, not a spiritual darkness, but a literal one. Like almost all town houses, the 1873 Italianate structure in Brooklyn had windows just in the front and the rear, so light never penetrated to its center, and the lower floors were particularly gloomy. When R.A. McBride and her partner lived only in the top three floors while renting out the bottom two, this wasn’t much of a concern—the upper levels were bright enough. But by the time their third child arrived and they were resorting to dividing rooms with curtains in order to give everyone their own space, the couple realized it was time for a change. Time to take over all five…

Iñaki y Cristina: las condiciones de su divorcio

Iñaki y Cristina: las condiciones de su divorcio

HEMOS decidido, de común acuerdo, interrumpir nuestra relación matrimonial”. Con estas palabras, la Infanta Cristina e Iñaki Urdangarin comunicaban el pasado lunes lo que venía siendo un clamor desde hacía casi una semana. Las fotos de Urdangarin paseando de la mano de otra mujer por una playa de la localidad francesa de Bidart eran demasiado evidentes como para mirar hacia otro lado. Y así terminó consumándose lo inevitable. Ni siquiera el protagonista lo negó al ser preguntado al respecto al día siguiente: “Son cosas que pasan” fue su explicación, dando así por confirmada una tremenda historia de traición y desamor. Acudía al despacho de abogados de Vitoria donde trabaja desde que obtuvo el tercer grado. Rodeado por una nube de medios, Urdangarin asumía los hechos y hablaba de “gestionar” la situación lo…

SKG

"Ilove the idea of creating a home for inspiration and not as a showcase,” writes Stephanie Kienle Gonzalez, president of the homegrown and family-owned furniture brand, Philux. “The elements in it should move you and convey aspects of your life, personality and individuality.” The newly minted author of Embracing Natural Design published by Rizzoli is an advocate of purposeful and intentional living. “I fill my space with a mix of simple and notable pieces that I hope to pass on from one generation to another.” Known for her exceptional sense of style, the beautiful Swiss-Filipina has been the face of many campaigns since her teen years. She’s graced many magazine covers and was awarded Tatler Asia’s Most Stylish in 2016. Her fashion sense is a mix of well-tailored pieces infused with…

SKG
Business as Usual

Business as Usual

The quiet of my night on call was interrupted by the familiar chime of my pager. The message on the screen requested I come to the emergency room to evaluate a patient with chest pain. For a gastroenterologist, “chest pain” is a bit of an uncommon symptom; usually, such concerns go to cardiology. But sometimes people with chest pain have a GI cause for their troubles. When I arrived in the ER, the patient was sitting up in bed, leaning forward, and gently rocking back and forth in what was clearly a state of significant distress. Still, Matt, a 60-year-old salesman, was able to tell me what was going on. As part of his job, he occasionally had to take potential clients out to business dinners — lavish affairs at fancy…

Facebook Knows It’s Losing The Kids

In March a group of researchers inside Facebook Inc. compiled a report for Chris Cox, the chief product officer, to highlight a troubling trend that seemed to be accelerating: Facebook was losing popularity among teens and young adults. One colorful graphic showed that “time spent” by U.S. teenagers on Facebook in early February was down 16% from the previous year and that young adults in the U.S. were also spending 5% less time on the social network. The number of new teen sign-ups was declining, and people were joining later in life. Most people born before 2000 had created a Facebook account by age 19 or 20, the research showed. Facebook wasn’t expecting people born later to join the social network until they were much older, perhaps 24 or 25, if ever. The…

Facebook Knows It’s Losing The Kids

INSIDE ZELENSKY’S WORLD

THE NIGHTS ARE THE HARDEST, when he lies there on his cot, the whine of the air-raid sirens in his ears and his phone still buzzing beside him. Its screen makes his face look like a ghost in the dark, his eyes scanning messages he didn’t have a chance to read during the day. Some from his wife and kids, many from his advisers, a few from his troops, surrounded in their bunkers, asking him again and again for more weapons to break the Russian siege. Inside his own bunker, the President has a habit of staring at his daily agenda even when the day is over. He lies awake and wonders whether he missed something, forgot someone. “It’s pointless,” Volodymyr Zelensky told me at the presidential compound in Kyiv, just…

INSIDE ZELENSKY’S WORLD

Love and Medicine

THIS FALL, NEWSWEEK, IN COLLABORATION with my company, the Best Practice Institute (BPI), will unveil the second annual Most Loved Workplaces list. The concept is simple: we feature the top 100 companies where employees feel cared for and respected—and have numerous opportunities for advancement. But before the new list appears, we’ll turn the spotlight on a few of the companies in the inaugural rankings. We started off with Pamela Maynard, CEO of Seattle consulting firm, Avanade, which was number 31 on last year’s list. Now we turn our attention to Chris Chen, CEO of Miami-based ChenMed, founded by his father, James. The company, number 36 on the 2021 rankings, operates a 3,500-employee chain of some 100 medical clinics that cater to Medicare recipients, many of whom are low income. ChenMed is interesting in…

Love and Medicine
Banks for the Banks That Aren’t Banks

Banks for the Banks That Aren’t Banks

The Current ads plastered across the insides of New York City subway cars declare: “We’re not a bank.” Yes, the company offers bank accounts with debit cards. But it’s a financial technology company, and it doesn’t actually hold its customers’ money. Current’s business is essentially about building an appealing virtual storefront and menu of services. Users of its colorful app can personalize their profiles like they do on social media, including choosing a cover photo and profile picture. Current’s emails to customers may include emojis in the subject line. You have to go to Park Avenue to understand where your money really is—there’s a chance Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp. has it. Its offices in Midtown Manhattan resemble any other traditional bank: white marble walls, dual computer monitors, bankers wearing vests emblazoned…

J.Lo & Ben: A Second Chance at Love!

J.Lo & Ben: A Second Chance at Love!

Reboots and revivals are everywhere you look in Hollywood—but who could have guessed that the most talked-about love story of summer 2021 would be an emotional real-life sequel? Part 1: Back in 2004 Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez broke off their engagement after an intense relationship that played out in a swirl of diamonds, red carpets and tabloid headlines. Part 2: Older, wiser and still passionate about each other, the superstars have rekindled their romance—and they’re determined to make it last. “They want a future together. Jennifer never thought she’d end up with Ben, but she’s thrilled that she did,” says a Lopez source. The feeling is mutual for Affleck, who first sparked buzz about their renewed bond when he praised Lopez’s “extraordinary work ethic” and “humility” in her May…

2023 Porsche 911 GT3 RS

Before you read a word, look at the pictures accompanying this story and answer this question: If the 911 GT3 RS carried a sticker price of $1 million, how long would you need to pick yourself up after you collapsed in laughter? Whatever your estimate, it’s likely fair enough on the surface. The 911’s enduring, insuperable popularity has encouraged Porsche to crank out as many derivatives of its 59-year-old sports car as its assembly lines can accommodate—and selling every one of them, mind you. Another year, another month, another week; ho-hum, look out, here comes another 911! People who don’t get it understandably hit the snooze button. If the average 911’s ubiquity is at least partially a result of its inherent goodness, the GT3 RS is the line’s bucket of dry ice…

Altered Reality

Altered Reality

GAME CHANGERS WHEN LIANA WALLACE WAS LITTLE, WATCHING Survivor was a reward for behaving during bath time. Her brother Andre would channel host Jeff Probst by lighting candles during Tribal Council and snuffing out the “torch” of the eliminated contestant—always played by her other brother, Jordan. They were “super into” the show, says 21-year-old Wallace, even though their dad would occasionally walk into the room and question why no one on the CBS reality series looked like their family: “Where are all the Black folks?” Her dad’s observations were top of mind when she was flown out to be a contestant on season 41 of Survivor last March. But while waiting out the required COVID quarantine in a Fiji hotel, Wallace was able to lay eyes on her competition—which included five other…

Passages

Babies Glee alum Matthew Morrison, 42, and his wife, interior designer Renee Puente, 36, are expecting their second child. The two also share son Revel James, 3. Morrison revealed the news in a sweet Instagram Story, saying, “Baby loading.” • Lauren Bush Lauren, 36, who is George H.W. Bush’s granddaughter, welcomed her third child, son Robert Rocky, with husband David Lauren, 49, designer Ralph Lauren’s son. The two also share sons James, 5, and Max, 3. “We are so in love and happy that you have come to complete our wolf pack,” she wrote on Instagram. Health YouTube star Jeffree Star, 35, and a friend were hospitalized after a car accident in Wyoming. The car reportedly flipped three times after hitting black ice, leaving Star with a back injury. “My vertebrae, three of…

Passages

Kyle MacLachlan: Fame, Family & Rocking TikTok!

‘I’ve gotten more curious. It’s one of the great things about being an actor’ Whether trapped in a twisted love affair in Blue Velvet or fetishizing coffee and cherry pie as Twin Peaks’ special agent Dale Cooper, Kyle MacLachlan—who launched his career starring in director David Lynch’s dark fantasies—has always had a knack for noir. “I’ve been your guide through some dangerous places, like the boatman across the River Styx,” he reflects on a late-afternoon Zoom chat over coffee (one of “five or six” cups he has per day). But offscreen, as a husband and father, MacLachlan prefers the ordinary over the extraordinary. “I’m just a regular guy,” he says, “and being a regular guy is important to me.” That feeling was never more true than this past year, as MacLachlan enjoyed…

Kyle MacLachlan: Fame, Family & Rocking TikTok!
SURPRISE CELEBRATIONS AS THEY RENEW THEIR WEDDING VOWS NATALIE ANDERSON AND JAMES SHEPHERD RED, WHITE AND BLUE ARE THE COLOURS OF THE DAY ON THEIR SPECIAL LOVE ISLAND IN THE MALDIVES

SURPRISE CELEBRATIONS AS THEY RENEW THEIR WEDDING VOWS NATALIE ANDERSON AND JAMES SHEPHERD RED, WHITE AND BLUE ARE THE COLOURS OF THE DAY ON THEIR SPECIAL LOVE ISLAND IN THE MALDIVES

‘It was so magical and so intimate. It was perfect — all I dreamt it would be’Natalie With red petals falling like confetti from the blue sky onto the white sands of Velassaru in the Maldives, actress Natalie Anderson renewed her wedding vows in a surprise ceremony – so secret that not even her husband James Shepherd knew what was about to happen. Natalie hatched a plan with their nine-year-old son Freddie that played out in the finest tradition of a romantic film, with him delivering a special letter to get his father to the ceremony on time. “How James didn’t know is beyond me,” Natalie tells HELLO!, laughing. “It was so magical and so intimate with it just being the three of us. It was absolutely perfect and all I dreamt it…

GREAT ROOMS

GREAT ROOMS

Conventional wisdom tells you to always take the call. So when a young couple from Cleveland dialed the Redd Kaihoi office asking to speak with Miles Redd, that is exactly what the AD100 superstar did. “They just gave the phone right to him,” marvels the client, who told Redd she and her husband were looking to design their forever home. Redd explained that a project of this scope was like a marriage, and suggested they meet in person. Cocktails in the Renzo Mongiardino–designed tearoom at The Carlyle in Manhattan confirmed immediate chemistry. As the clients exited, the wife recalls, “My husband, who is very analytical, turned to me and said, ‘Well, that’s done!’” The couple had found their decorator. The only problem: There was no house to decorate. The 29 acres…

Editor’s Note

Send Help: the Lists Are Back THE FIRST silver lining of isolated living dawned on me about three weeks into the pandemic. Amid late-night cleaning, I came across the giant pad of paper I used for my family to-do list, tore off the crowded top sheet, and threw it in the trash. No, I hadn’t finally found the time to research day camps, help plan a presentation for my son’s kindergarten class, order a new living-room rug, or buy birthday presents for five different schoolmates. Instead, everything, even the need for my kids and my home to look presentable, had been canceled. It was as if a concrete roller had smoothed out an entire region of my brain. I may have missed the enrichment of being out in the world, but I…

Editor’s Note
Clooney

Clooney

George Clooney’s hillside home in Los Angeles seems blissfully abuzz. It’s a cool morning in late fall, and his 3-year-old twins, Alexander and Ella, her brown pigtails bobbing in the air, jump in a bouncy castle set up in a corner of the family’s tennis court. The two chatter in fluent Italian—a skill Clooney, who is not fluent, half-regrets encouraging. “I’m like, ‘Papa stronzo? What did you just call me?!’” he later shares. Their puppy Rosie (named for singer Rosemary Clooney, the star’s late aunt) hangs out near Clooney’s wife, Amal, 42, who’s on work calls in the house. The Oscar winner, 59—who directed and stars in the new movie The Midnight Sky, on Netflix on Dec. 23—has spent much of the year holed up with his family and relishing…

They Had a Big Year

SHAYAN ASGHARNIA/AUGUST; PHYLICIA J. L. MUNN; CHRISTIAN GILLES/NEWSPIX/GETTY IMAGES; KWAKU ALSTON/CONTOUR RA/GETTY IMAGES; MATTHEW STOCKMAN/GETTY IMAGES; MARCUS YAM/LOS ANGELES TIMES/CONTOUR RA BY GETTY IMAGES. SUZANNE KREITER/THE BOSTON GLOBE/GETTY IMAGES; ABC ENTERTAINMENT; EMMA MCINTYRE/GETTY IMAGES; NATHAN CONGLETON/NBCUNIVERSAL/GETTY IMAGES. SARA JAYE WEISS/SHUTTERSTOCK; CHRISTOPHER PATEY/NETFLIX; SLAVEN VLASIC/GETTY IMAGES; VERA ANDERSON/WIREIMAGE…

They Had a Big Year
Treatments That Keep You You

Treatments That Keep You You

Many of us aren’t interested in overhauling our appearance with beauty treatments and definitely don’t want to be told that we should be. In fact, these days, the general desire is refreshingly the opposite. “People have leaned into their idiosyncrasies, no longer afraid of the things that make us different and finding great value in them,” says Lara Devgan, M.D., a plastic surgeon in New York. “It’s self-acceptance that comes from a place of self-love, not inadequacy,” says Caroline Robinson, M.D., a dermatologist in Chicago. So it’s no surprise that with aesthetic procedures, people are renouncing cookie-cutter results—the same pillowy lips, narrow nose, sculpted cheeks, and Facetuned complexion—and instead requesting “tweakments”: pro treatments that produce natural, almost-imperceptible changes. As such, injectors are moving away from what’s referred to as the…

Bright Mood, Better Health

Looking at life with a brighter viewpoint is a science-backed tool that can improve your mood, help you meet goals, and upgrade your health. And you don’t have to overhaul your personality to benefit: Even small differences in your attitude can deliver big payoffs, says Hilary Tindle, M.D., the author of Up: How a Positive Outlook Can Transform Our Health and Aging. What makes optimism so powerful is that it’s based in realism—it’s not about simply thinking things will be OK. “True optimists are pragmatic, perhaps because they scan the horizon to see what might go wrong, then work and plan around those potential pitfalls so things can go right,” Dr. Tindle says. In other words, optimists proactively work to make the positive happen. In return, they score some major health…

Bright Mood, Better Health
Small Wonder

Small Wonder

Jennifer and Scott Frank had a gut feeling as they drove the winding dirt road in Litchfield County, Connecticut. As they rounded yet another curve, there it sat: the house of their dreams. Yes, it was a tiny, somewhat lopsided early Colonial-era cottage, bounded by meadow and woods and near to a barn and shed in as rough shape as the house, but the couple could see its potential as the perfect respite from their New York City life. Michael Halpern has been the Franks’ designer and close friend for well over two decades. In fact, it was a weekend visit to his 1800s Connecticut farmhouse that sparked the couple’s longing for something similar and sent him on a mission to find them their own place. When he discovered this cottage,…

Model Citizen

Liya Kebede Founder and creative director of Lemlem, model, and actress New York City and Paris In a Lemlem dress, you can’t help but float through summer. Whisper-light and awash in happy, sun-drenched colors, each one is hand-woven on wooden looms by African artisans, following centuries-old traditions. The brand’s founder is Ethiopian model and maternal-health advocate Liya Kebede, who rose to fame in the early aughts as the face of Tom Ford’s Gucci and the first Black spokesmodel for Estée Lauder. On a trip to her hometown of Addis Ababa around that time, she noticed a distressing drop in the demand for traditional garments, and got busy. “Weaving is a craft that has been passed through generations and holds deep cultural significance,” says Kebede, who set her mind to preserving the art,…

Model Citizen

Just Peachy

WHEN PEACHES ARE SO ripe that one bite sends a river of juices runing down your arm, you know it’s time to throw them into everything you can. While you’re probably already keen on peach crisp, pie, and cobbler, you might be missing out on some less expected—but equally delicious—ways to enjoy the stone fruit during its fleeting peak season. Case in point: peaches and tomatoes. This wildly overlooked combination is summertime gold. The sweetness of the peaches beautifully complements the acidity of the tomatoes. We love adding peaches to a caprese salad, a BLT, or a simple pasta like the one shown here. And if peaches aren’t making their way onto the grill right about now, you’re missing out. You could throw halves or wedges right on the grates to char…

Just Peachy

Brighter Skin Ahead

Not sure what to do about dark spots or other discoloration that never seems to fade? The path to a brighter, more even complexion starts with powerful skincare. An important component of a brightening skincare routine is vitamin C, says Chicago dermatologist Caroline Robinson, M.D. But don’t stop there! She notes that “any routine attempting to address hyperpigmentation has to do so from multiple angles.” Keep reading to learn exactly what the right steps entail. VITAMIN FORTIFIED Your routine should include one vitamin C product applied after cleansing in the morning (and always topped with sunscreen). Lumene Nordic-C Arctic Berry Oil-Cocktail $25; target.com Sweet Chef Ginger & Vitamin C Bright Spot Tonic is part treatment, part toner. $18; target.com La Roche-Posay 10% Pure Vitamin C Serum also contains smoothing salicylic acid. $40;…

Brighter Skin Ahead

Is Quantum Computing a Bubble Ready to Burst?

The massive intersection of James Avenue and East Boughton Road in Bolingbrook, Illinois, looks like many other crossroads in suburban America. A drive-through Starbucks keeps watch over 15 lanes of turning and merging mid-size SUVs, most headed for the sprawling parking lots of the Promenade shopping mall to the south, a few others en route to the shooting gallery and gun shop across Interstate 355 to the east. Few of the people in the SUVs realize they’re driving over part of America’s blossoming research into quantum information technology. Beneath the interstate, entangled photons—quantum particles moving at the speed of light—are teleporting to and from the Argonne National Laboratory in the next town over, through repurposed fiber-optic cables that make up one of the longest land-based quantum networks in the nation. Researchers hope…

Is Quantum Computing a Bubble Ready to Burst?

Top Tires for Cars, SUVs, and Trucks

It’s hard to overstate how important tires are to safe driving. After all, they're the only part of the car that touches the road. That’s why so many consumers in colder climates take the time and effort (and spend the money) to switch to winter/snow tires once a year to ensure that their vehicles have the best grip possible. With the inconvenience of swapping tires in mind, some manufacturers have introduced all-weather models designed to perform well in the snow and year-round. Some cost more than the average price of the all-season tires that they typically replace, but buyers will come out ahead by avoiding the cost and hassle of seasonal tire changes. “The best all-weather tires provide year-round traction that truly com bines all-season and winter/snow performance,” says Ryan Pszczolkowski, Consumer Reports’…

Top Tires for Cars, SUVs, and Trucks
In Search of the Nudibranch

In Search of the Nudibranch

Slowly and deliberately, I searched shallow, underwater outcrops covered in colors. Weightless amidst the invisible push and pull of the current, pink coralline algae hung closely to rock surfaces or branched skyward against sporadic patches of neon green and glimmering iridescence. Shades of yellow, brown, white and orange flora began to appear as I drifted past micro-environments dictated by sunlight and structure. I allowed my scientific brain to go to work underwater, relying on one of my first developed senses: observation. I had come to this underwater world to seek out a nudibranch. I had heard of this elusive marine organism, but until recently, knew almost nothing about it. My goal at the moment was just to find one, to examine it with my own eyes. I’ve always been drawn to scuba…

Glaciers

1 We’re living in an ice age. For most of the past 2.5 million years, much of the planet has been glaciated, as Antarctica still is today. 2 Our current, more hospitable geological epoch, the Holocene, is a brief respite; today’s glaciers have been in retreat for the past 12,000 years. 3 Geologists call this an interglacial, and caution us not to get used to it. Interglacials are caused by cyclical changes in Earth’s orbit, and have nothing to do with human-induced climate change. 4 The ice could be on schedule to return as soon as the next several millennia — but only if we don’t totally cook the planet in the interim. 5 The fact that the world was once iced over wasn’t known until the 19th century, when…

Glaciers

A CLOSER LOOK

Looking at the mammogram image, with its spiderweb of faint gray lines showing dense breast tissue, you wouldn’t suspect anything was amiss. No human radiologist would hesitate to give this Massachusetts General Hospital patient a clean bill of health. But the Mirai artificial-intelligence system, created at MIT, thinks differently. When it scanned the mammogram, it flagged the patient as high risk for getting breast cancer in the next five years. Ultimately, the machine’s hunch proved correct: The patient indeed developed breast cancer, just four years after the image was taken. Since about 90 percent of people who develop breast cancer don’t have a known genetic mutation, the disease’s emergence can be highly unpredictable. Regina Barzilay, an MIT computer scientist now working on Mirai, was blindsided when she got her own breast…

A CLOSER LOOK
WHEN VIRUSES HEAL

WHEN VIRUSES HEAL

Sitting in an isolated room at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Frank Nielsen steeled himself for the first injection. Doctors were about to take a needle filled with herpes simplex virus, the strain responsible for cold sores, and plunge it directly into his scalp. If all went well, it would likely save his life. Nielsen was a cancer survivor and, once again, a cancer patient. His melanoma, which had responded to conventional treatments the first time around, had returned with a frightening aggressiveness. Within weeks, a lump on his scalp had swelled into an ugly mass. Unlike the first time, options like surgery weren’t viable — it was growing too quickly. As a last resort, his doctors turned to a cutting-edge drug known as T-VEC, approved in 2015 in the…

SEEKING LOST LIGHT

SEEKING LOST LIGHT

I never wanted to be an astrophysicist. While a lot of my colleagues were looking through amateur telescopes, I was dreaming of decoding hieroglyphics and brushing off hidden artifacts in newly discovered Ancient Egyptian tombs. As is the case with most young Egyptophiles, for me there was one story that captured the excitement of Ancient Egyptian discoveries more than any other: the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. In November 1922, British archaeologist Howard Carter held up a candle and peered through a small drill hole in the tomb door. His patron, Lord Carnarvon, asked him if he could see anything, to which Carter, struck dumb with amazement, could only reply, “Yes, wonderful things, wonderful things!” He recounted later that, in the dim candlelight, “details of the room emerged slowly from…

TOUCH POINTS

TOUCH POINTS

Several years ago, Sushma Subramanian was procrastinating on her work when she noticed her desk was a bit wobbly. It was a rather mundane moment, she recalls. But as she began to fiddle with the tabletop, the science journalist found herself noting how the experience felt: the grain of the wood against her fingers, the pinching of her skin and the sensation of her muscles straining to lift the desk. As Subramanian explains in her book, How to Feel: The Science and Meaning of Touch (Columbia University Press, 2021), it was a moment when she began to consider how little she knew about this multifaceted sense. The questions kept forming, eventually leading Subramanian to write an article for Discover in 2015 about the development of tactile touch screens. In her latest work,…