makes

2Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SELF, WORK

Taking Care Of Kids Makes Balancing Work And Life Harder — Particularly For Moms, Poll Finds

At 4 a.m. each day, Pamela Hines wakes up to pack lunches for her two older sons, who are 9 and 7, and make sure their homework is in their backpacks. She gets breakfast for them and her youngest son, 2, as well as her husband. Kids in tow, she drives her husband to his workplace in Pennsylvania, 30 minutes from their home in Morgantown, W.Va., then takes the two older kids to school. Her husband lost his job at the start of the pandemic and is thrilled to be back at work now. He works from 5:45 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. each day, installing drainage systems and doing other manual work. After dropping the kids off, Hines cares for her 2-year-old while running the nonprofit she started to connect Americans who have extra travel miles with Ukrainian mothers and children who want to leave the coun...

What Makes The Show ‘Love Island’ So Successful?

31Mar

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

TELEVISION

What Makes The Show ‘Love Island’ So Successful?

Audiences can’t get enough of reality dating TV shows, including First Dates and Married at First Sight. But few programmes have been able to drum up the same level of excitement as Love Island, which returned this week after an 18-month break. You can listen to more articles from The Conversation, narrated by Noa, here. With viewing figures usually in the millions, Love Island, in particular, has become ubiquitous in British pop culture since its arrival in 2015. But beyond the apparent appeal of watching people go through the up and downs of finding love, what is the enduring attraction of this genre of reality TV? The gimmicks of shows like Love is Blind and the upcoming Netflix dating show Sexy Beasts, (in which participants wear animal prosthetics to mask their true appearanc...

The Chemistry Of Cooking Over An Open Flame – What Makes Smoky, Charred Barbecue Taste So Good?

7Jun

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS, WHAT'S GOOD

The Chemistry Of Cooking Over An Open Flame – What Makes Smoky, Charred Barbecue Taste So Good?

The mere thought of barbecue’s smokey scents and intoxicating flavors is enough to get most mouths watering. Summer is here, and that means it is barbecue season for many people in the U.S. I am a chemist who studies compounds found in nature, and I am also a lover of food – including barbecue. Cooking on a grill may seem simple, but there is a lot of chemistry that sets barbecue apart from other cooking methods and results in such a delicious experience. Cooking over an open flame – whether from gas, wood or charcoal – allows you to use both radiant and conductive heat to cook food. Romary/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA Cooking with fire First, it is important to define barbecue because the term can mean different things in different cultures or geographic locations. At its most basic, barb...

If Congress Makes Daylight Saving Time Permanent – 5 Ways Americans’ Lives Will Change

6Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

If Congress Makes Daylight Saving Time Permanent – 5 Ways Americans’ Lives Will Change

The U.S. Senate approved the Sunshine Protection Act in March 2022, with the goal of making daylight saving time permanent starting in November 2023. If that happens, the U.S. will never again “spring forward” or “fall back.” Following the Senate’s vote and a recent hearing in the House Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce – at which I testified – the subcommittee is now considering the issue. The full House of Representatives will need to vote in support of permanent DST before the bill goes to President Biden’s desk for his signature. In my research on DST, I have found that Americans don’t like Congress messing with their clocks. However, the move to DST year-round makes a lot of sense. In an effort to avoid the biannual time change in spring and fall, some DST critics ha...

Manipulation And Misinformation On Social Media – How ‘Engagement’ Makes You Vulnerable

13Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SOCIAL MEDIA

Manipulation And Misinformation On Social Media – How ‘Engagement’ Makes You Vulnerable

Filippo Menczer, Indiana University Facebook has been quietly experimenting with reducing the amount of political content it puts in users’ news feeds. The move is a tacit acknowledgment that the way the company’s algorithms work can be a problem. The heart of the matter is the distinction between provoking a response and providing content people want. Social media algorithms – the rules their computers follow in deciding the content that you see – rely heavily on people’s behavior to make these decisions. In particular, they watch for content that people respond to or “engage” with by liking, commenting and sharing. As a computer scientist who studies the ways large numbers of people interact using technology, I understand the logic of using the wisdom of the crowds in these algorithms...

Pandemic Makes Separation Even Scarier For People With A Family Member In Prison – No Visits And Barely Any Calls

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism

Pandemic Makes Separation Even Scarier For People With A Family Member In Prison – No Visits And Barely Any Calls

Jails and prisons in the United States had a coronavirus infection rate three times greater than the general population, with an average of 1,400 new COVID-19 infections and seven deaths every day over the past year. America’s correctional facilities are notoriously bad for spreading infectious diseases. Millions of people constantly cycle in and out of them every year and they have limited medical staff and supplies. People in prison also spend extended periods in crowded indoor spaces, with poor air circulation and ventilation. For many people who are incarcerated, either awaiting trial in jail or imprisoned after conviction, being locked in a pandemic hot spot has been terrifying. And for the 6.5 million Americans who have a family member incarcerated, COVID-19 has made an already hig...

Instead Of A Place Where You Can Lose Your Life Savings In A New York Minute – Robinhood App Makes Wall Street Feel Like A Game To Win

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

BUSINESS, VIDEO REELS

Instead Of A Place Where You Can Lose Your Life Savings In A New York Minute – Robinhood App Makes Wall Street Feel Like A Game To Win

Wall Street has long been likened to a casino. Robinhood, an investment app that just filed plans for an initial public offering, makes the comparison more apt than ever. That’s because the power of the casino is the way it makes people feel like gambling their money away is a game. Casinos are full of mood lighting, fun noises and other sensory details that reward gamblers when they place coins in slots. Similarly, Robinhood’s slick and easy-to-use app resembles a thrill-inducing video game rather than a sober investment tool. The color palette of red and green is associated with mood, with green having a calming effect and red increasing arousal, anger and negative emotions. Picking stocks can seem like a fun lottery of scratching off the winning ticket; celebratory confetti drops from...

Promising Rapid Drug Development – One Of Biology’s Greatest Challenges – AI Makes Huge Progress Predicting How Proteins Fold

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

AI, TECHNOLOGY

Promising Rapid Drug Development – One Of Biology’s Greatest Challenges – AI Makes Huge Progress Predicting How Proteins Fold

Takeaways A “deep learning” software program from Google-owned lab DeepMind showed great progress in solving one of biology’s greatest challenges – understanding protein folding. Protein folding is the process by which a protein takes its shape from a string of building blocks to its final three-dimensional structure, which determines its function. By better predicting how proteins take their structure, or “fold,” scientists can more quickly develop drugs that, for example, block the action of crucial viral proteins. Solving what biologists call “the protein-folding problem” is a big deal. Proteins are the workhorses of cells and are present in all living organisms. They are made up of long chains of amino acids and are vital for the structure of cells and communication between ...

Evidence Is Still Slim That The Cannabis Derivative CBD Makes A Difference For Anxiety Or Pain, But Sales Are Soaring

18Nov

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

Evidence Is Still Slim That The Cannabis Derivative CBD Makes A Difference For Anxiety Or Pain, But Sales Are Soaring

Many people have turned to cannabis and its derivatives as they search for pandemic relief, and one of the most widely available ones is CBD. It is also legal. You can buy oils, tinctures, capsules, gummies, cosmetics and even toilet paper said to contain the molecule. Martha Stewart has a line of CBD products, and some companies are marketing CBD products for holiday gifts. And, you can even buy CBD products for your pet. An investment bank has estimated that this market will be worth US$16 billion by 2025, even though many of the products that allegedly contain CBD may not contain any CBD all. And, if they do, the amount often is far less than the amount stated on the product bottle or box. The CBD craze started in 2018, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Epidiolex, t...

Being Black in the U.S. Makes People More Vulnerable to Chronic Stress and COVID-19 and Other Diseases

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS

Being Black in the U.S. Makes People More Vulnerable to Chronic Stress and COVID-19 and Other Diseases

Racism is a chronic, uncontrollable, and unpredictable stress that can wreak havoc on the mind and body. The COVID-19 pandemic and the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery are two major catastrophes that shine a light on longstanding social inequities and injustices toward African Americans. Emerging research in the field of social genomics demonstrates how social stress, such as racism and discrimination, can shift the body’s biological resources toward a state that increases risk for disease. For example, our research group has found that racial discrimination may be affecting the way genes are expressed, leading to increased levels of dangerous stress hormones. These differences were found even when social determinant factors such as poverty and other forms of stress were accounte...