LeVar Burton’s turn behind the Jeopardy! the podium has been a long time coming. In 2013, Burton tweeted that his dream job would be to host Jeopardy!; in September 2020, he tweeted, “Not gonna lie, I feel like I’ve been preparing my whole life to occupy the Jeopardy! podium when Alex Trebek retires.” Then, the world turned upside down for devoted Jeopardy! viewers like Burton—in November 2020, Trebek died of pancreatic cancer, leaving a void in American life that seemingly no one could fill. But the show must go on, so Jeopardy! producers hired a revolving door of prominent broadcasters, athletes, and actors to moderate America’s favorite game show. “The guest hosts were a way to find a permanent replacement for Alex,” Burton told Esquire, “but also an appropriate way for America to get used to the fact that Alex wasn’t going to be there anymore.”
Now, Burton is stepping up to the plate as a Jeopardy! Season 37 guest host, while an announcement about the permanent host looms. Burton, the public intellectual who cultivated a love of reading and knowledge in an entire generation of Americans through the Peabody Award-winning series Reading Rainbow, seems an obvious successor to Trebek. But if he doesn’t get the gig, don’t worry about him. “If I don’t get it, I’ll be fine,” Burton told Esquire. “My life will go on.”
Last September, a wildfire tore through one of Dario Sattui’s Napa Valley wineries, destroying millions of dollars in property and equipment, along with 9,000 cases of wine.
November brought a second disaster: Mr. Sattui realized the precious crop of cabernet grapes that survived the fire had been ruined by the smoke. There would be no 2020 vintage.
A freakishly dry winter led to a third calamity: By spring, the reservoir at another of Mr. Sattui’s vineyards was all but empty, meaning little water to irrigate the new crop.
Finally, in March, came the fourth blow: Mr. Sattui’s insurers said they would no longer cover the winery that had burned down. Neither would any other company. In the patois of insurance, the winery will go bare into this year’s burning season, which experts predict to be especially fierce.
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Stuart Smith, owner of Smith Madrone Vineyards & Winery, inspected burned tree stumps near his vineyards, which were charred in last year’s wildfires, in St. Helena, Calif.Credit…Mike Kai Chen for The New York Times
IQ is often hailed as a crucial driver of success, particularly in fields such as science, innovation, and technology. In fact, many people have an endless fascination with the IQ scores of famous people. But the truth is that some of the greatest achievements by our species have primarily relied on qualities such as creativity, imagination, curiosity, and empathy.
Many of these traits are embedded in what scientists call “cognitive flexibility” – a skill that enables us to switch between different concepts or to adapt behavior to achieve goals in a novel or changing environment. It is essentially about learning to learn and being able to be flexible about the way you learn. This includes changing strategies for optimal decision-making. In our ongoing research, we are trying to work out how people can best boost their cognitive flexibility.
Cognitive flexibility provides us with the ability to see that what we are doing is not leading to success and to make the appropriate changes to achieve it. If you normally take the same route to work, but there are now roadworks on your usual route, what do you do? Some people remain rigid and stick to the original plan, despite the delay. More flexible people adapt to an unexpected event and problem-solve to find a solution.
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Einstein thought imagination was crucial. Robert and Talbot Trudeau/Flickr, CC BY-NC
As America struggled to recover from a global pandemic, a shattered economy, and record unemployment levels, headlines despaired: “NECKTIES DOOMED.” Men were “slashing their clothing bills” to retailers’ chagrin, the Associated Press reported. Those who continued to wear ties were downgrading from colorful, expensive silk to plain, cheap cotton. The year was 1921, and reports of the tie’s death were premature, to say the least.
A century later, as Americans begin to emerge from another financially devastating pandemic, another rash of headlines is predicting the tie’s imminent demise. Last fall, the Financial Times wondered, “Is This the End of the Tie?” More recently, The Wall Street Journal asked, “Will Ties Ever Be Relevant Again?” For more than a year, many men who once felt bound to wear ties have shown up on Zoom each day wearing polos or even T-shirts. Now that they have tasted freedom from the necktie—and have seen their colleagues, clients, and bosses doing the same—how can they ever go back to working with their necks encumbered?
After this pandemic, many fewer men will have to. The arc of fashion has always bent toward informality (and androgyny—since the late 1800s, women have sometimes worn ties too). But a major disruption—like a war, a recession, or a global pandemic—can accelerate that natural change. Ties as an everyday accessory have certainly taken a hit, from which they’re unlikely to recover fully. The deeper functions that ties have long provided—such as social signaling and personal expression—will be absorbed by other garments. But ties will continue to be worn on the most formal occasions, and as quirky accoutrements for the self-consciously old-fashioned or whimsical. In other words, neckties are the new bow ties.
Paleobotanist Scott Wing hopes that he’s wrong. Even though he carefully counted each ring in an immense, ancient slab of sequoia, the scientist notes that there’s always a little bit of uncertainty in the count. Wing came up with about 260, but, he says, it’s likely a young visitor may one day write him saying: “You’re off by three.” And that would a good thing, Wing says, because it’d be another moment in our ongoing conversation about time.
The shining slab, preserved and polished, is the keystone to consideration of time and our place in it in the “Hall of Fossils—Deep Time” exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The fossil greets visitors at one of the show’s entrances and just like the physical tree, what the sequoia represents has layers.
Each yearly delineation on the sequoia’s surface is a small part of a far grander story that ties together all of life on Earth. Scientists know this as Deep Time. It’s not just on the scale of centuries, millennia, epochs, or periods, but the ongoing flow that goes back to the origins of our universe, the formation of the Earth, and the evolution of all life, up through this present moment. It’s the backdrop for everything we see around us today, and it can be understood through techniques as different as absolute dating of radioactive minerals and counting the rings of a prehistoric tree. Each part informs the whole.
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How many answers are hidden inside the giants? Photo by Kelly Cheng Travel Photography / Getty Images.
If race is largely a social construct, then teaching children about it will only perpetuate racism — right? Wrong: Studies show precisely the opposite. Open conversations about race and racism can make white children less prejudiced and can increase the self-esteem of children of color.
If states ban the teaching of critical race theory, as conservative lawmakers in many are attempting to do, or if schools don’t provide consistent education about racism and discrimination, it’s imperative that parents pick up the slack.
Even if we don’t want them to, children do notice differences in race and skin color. And that means that attempts to suppress discussions about race and racism are misguided. Those efforts won’t eliminate prejudice. They may, in fact, make it worse.
So-called colorblind parenting — avoiding the topic of race in an effort to raise children who aren’t prejudiced — is not just unhelpful, it actually perpetuates racism. That’s because racism isn’t driven solely by individual prejudice. It’s a system of inequity bolstered by racist laws and policies — the very fact that opponents of teaching critical race theory are trying to erase.
As business consultant Peter Drucker once said, “You cannot predict the future, but you can create it.” Many businesses strive to create the future, but few understand what it takes to get teams to create new and innovative ideas in a repeatable manner.
Over the last 25 years of my career, I’ve found that organizations big and small often struggle to create repeatable approaches and processes that keep them truly competitive. 50 years ago, a little-known children’s book introduced the “SCAMPER” model as a way to help teachers foster creativity in their classrooms. It’s an amazingly simple tool, and unbelievably powerful for pushing thinking beyond “business as usual.”
Here’s how it works. SCAMPER is an acronym. SCAMPER stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to Another Use, Eliminate, and Reverse. This acronym is used to help prompt people to think differently than the norm. Each letter prompts people to answer a question related to the framework. It’s flexible. Select one letter or move through them in sequence.
SCAMPER can be used to generate ideas for improving existing offerings or business processes, or innovating completely new products and services. Once a set of ideas or concepts are developed, the best ideas should be selected and further refined through sharing and testing ideas with colleagues and customers.
Film and Writing Festival for Comedy. Showcasing best of comedy short films at the FEEDBACK Film Festival. Plus, showcasing best of comedy novels, short stories, poems, screenplays (TV, short, feature) at the festival performed by professional actors.
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Einstein thought imagination was crucial. 
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James' World 2 