Tuesday, January 13

VIDEO REELS

A Neurologist Explains Why Springing Forward Into Daylight Saving Time Is A Step Back For Health is worse than the fall time change
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SLEEP, VIDEO REELS

A Neurologist Explains Why Springing Forward Into Daylight Saving Time Is A Step Back For Health is worse than the fall time change

Springing forward into daylight saving time is a step back for health – a neurologist explains the medical evidence, and why this shift is worse than the fall time change. As people in the U.S. prepare to set their clocks ahead one hour on Sunday, March 12, 2023, I find myself bracing for the annual ritual of media stories about the disruptions to daily routines caused by switching from standard time to daylight saving time. About one-third of Americans say they don’t look forward to these twice-yearly time changes. And nearly two-thirds would like to eliminate them completely, compared to 21% who aren’t sure and 16% who would like to keep moving their clocks back and forth. But the effects go beyond simple inconvenience. Researchers are discovering that “springing ahead” each March is ...
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A Multidisciplinary Artist Who Denounced Violence Against African Americans – Basquiat
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VIDEO REELS

A Multidisciplinary Artist Who Denounced Violence Against African Americans – Basquiat

The exhibition Seeing Loud: Basquiat and Music, currently running at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, demonstrates that the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat, which is usually associated with painting, also calls upon other media, including music — the main theme of this exhibition — literature, comic strips, cinema and animation, a much lesser-known aspect of his work. Basquiat was born in New York in 1960 to a Haitian father and a mother of Puerto Rican descent. In the late 1970s, in collaboration with Al Diaz, he drew enigmatic graffiti under the pseudonym SAMO. The artist quickly made a name for himself in the New York art world (becoming friends with Andy Warhol and Madonna, among others). He then produced solo paintings and achieved international fame that continued to grow until his ...
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A Brief History: How Pink Became Fashion’s Color Of Controversy
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FASHION STYLE & BEAUTY, VIDEO REELS

A Brief History: How Pink Became Fashion’s Color Of Controversy

From the blush pink of royal mistresses to the hot pink of tabloid party girls, pink has gained a reputation for being a provocative color for those who dare to wear it. You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, here. Despite its various shades and the complexities of its cultural significance, it is a color that is often branded with the same connotations of feminine frivolity and excess – whether girlish and innocent or womanly and erotic. So much so that worshipers at a North London church were ordered to remove pink chairs after an ecclesiastical judge claimed that the choice of color scheme could “cause puzzlement”. This pink panic invites the question: why is pink so controversial? A brief glimpse at its rather colorful history in the Western ...
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A Hearing Specialist Offers Tips To Turn Down That Annoying Ringing, Buzzing And Hissing In The Ear – Aka Tinnitus
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SELF-CARE, VIDEO REELS

A Hearing Specialist Offers Tips To Turn Down That Annoying Ringing, Buzzing And Hissing In The Ear – Aka Tinnitus

Not a week goes by when I don’t see someone in my clinic complaining of a strange and constant phantom sound in one of their ears, or in both ears. The noise is loud, distracting and scary – and it doesn’t go away. The kind of sound varies from patient to patient: buzzing, blowing, hissing, ringing, roaring, rumbling, whooshing or a combination thereof. But whatever the sound, the condition is called tinnitus. And one thing tinnitus patients have in common is that the sound is not an external one. Instead, the noise is literally inside their head. As a neurotologist – that’s an ear specialist – I have seen approximately 2,500 tinnitus patients during my 20-year career. That might sound like a lot, but it shouldn’t be a surprise – up to 15% of the U.S. population experiences tinnitus. Tha...
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Do Accents Disappear?
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VIDEO REELS

Do Accents Disappear?

In Boston, there are reports of people pronouncing the letter “r.” Down in Tennessee, people are noticing a lack of a Southern drawl. And Texans have long worried about losing their distinctive twang. Indeed, around the United States, communities are voicing a common anxiety: Are Americans losing their accents? The fear of accent loss often emerges within communities that face demographic and technological changes. But on an individual level “losing one’s accent” is also part of a profit-driven industry, with accent reduction services promising professional and personal benefits to clients who change their speech by ironing out any regionalisms or foreign pronunciations. Boston has one of the most famous – and often-parodied – American accents. But is it really possible to lose one’s acc...
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Angela Lansbury – A Storied Career Sure To Touch People For Years To Come
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TELEVISION, VIDEO REELS

Angela Lansbury – A Storied Career Sure To Touch People For Years To Come

I never met Angela Lansbury, but she was one of those icons that felt like a trusted friend and family member. Every Sunday evening, I devoured Jessica Fletcher’s activities in Murder, She Wrote – catching the bad guys and saving another poor victim from eternal damnation. The younger generation discovered her as Mrs Potts in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and more recently as the balloon seller in Mary Poppins returns (a role created as a cameo appearance for Julie Andrews, who turned it down so attention was not taken away from Emily Blunt). Disney considered Lansbury for the original casting of Mary Poppins, so it is fitting that one of her last film appearances return full circle to her earlier Hollywood career. Lansbury, who died on October 11 2022, was a constant presence in film, st...
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Explainer: What Does ‘Gaslighting’ Mean?
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SELF-CARE, VIDEO REELS

Explainer: What Does ‘Gaslighting’ Mean?

Shortlisted for the Oxford English Dictionary’s 2018 word of the year, “gaslighting” has well and truly found its way into contemporary thought and vernacular. The term has recently been employed to explain the behavior of contestants on The Bachelor Australia, Monica Lewinksy’s experiences with the media post-Bill Clinton, and the words of US President Donald Trump. But what, exactly, does it mean? Where did it come from? And why is it experiencing a resurgence today? Gaslighting takes its name from the 1944 film Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer (itself based on the 1938 play Gas Light). In the film, Paula (Bergman) is deliberately and gradually manipulated by her husband, Gregory (Boyer), into believing she is insane. Paula’s late aunt’s priceless jewels are hidden ...
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Household Robot Servants Are A Lot Harder To Build Than Robotic Vacuums And Automated Warehouse Workers, Here’s Why
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TECH, VIDEO REELS

Household Robot Servants Are A Lot Harder To Build Than Robotic Vacuums And Automated Warehouse Workers, Here’s Why

With recent advances in artificial intelligence and robotics technology, there is growing interest in developing and marketing household robots capable of handling a variety of domestic chores. Tesla is building a humanoid robot, which, according to CEO Elon Musk, could be used for cooking meals and helping elderly people. Amazon recently acquired iRobot, a prominent robotic vacuum manufacturer, and has been investing heavily in the technology through the Amazon Robotics program to expand robotics technology to the consumer market. In May 2022, Dyson, a company renowned for its power vacuum cleaners, announced that it plans to build the U.K.’s largest robotics center devoted to developing household robots that carry out daily domestic tasks in residential spaces. Despite the growing inte...
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Five Reasons Andy Warhol Is So Popular Right Now
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TELEVISION, VIDEO REELS

Five Reasons Andy Warhol Is So Popular Right Now

Andy Warhol, like an image on one of his silkscreens, is multiplying. Suddenly, he is everywhere: in documentary series (The Andy Warhol Diaries on Netflix and Andy Warhol’s America on the BBC), in plays (The Collaboration at the Young Vic in London), and soon, at an auction house (his Marilyn Monroe painting goes on sale at Christie’s in May). Wikimedia   So why the current obsession with the pop artist? We believe there are striking resonances with our contemporary moment that might be fueling the revival. Here are five of them: 1. War, death and disaster The early 1960s marked a time when, much like our own, Russian tensions were high and the media was awash with violent scenes of war (Vietnam was often considered a proxy war between the US and the USSR). Warhol’s Death and Dis...
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Serena Williams Forced Sports Journalists To Get Out Of The ‘Toy Box’ – And Cover Tennis As More Than A Game
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SPORTS, VIDEO REELS

Serena Williams Forced Sports Journalists To Get Out Of The ‘Toy Box’ – And Cover Tennis As More Than A Game

Of the many outstanding components of her game, Serena Williams may best be known for her commanding serve. Those serves, unleashed over the course of a 27-year professional career, arguably heightened the power and intensity of the women’s game, forcing her opponents to game plan for each wicked volley. To those chronicling her exploits as one of the world’s best tennis players, Williams served up a different challenge. As a scholar of sports journalism, I have observed how its practitioners have struggled to find their footing when it comes to establishing consensus about what exactly constitutes good sports journalism. Williams’ presence as a Black woman in a historically white, patriarchal sport, her commitment to activism and her willingness to bare her personal challenges to the ...
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