James' World 2

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Two recent papers have shed light on dark matter within our own Milky Way and cast doubt on two popular theories: Modified Newtonian Dynamics and Superfluid Dark Matter. In both of these theories, additional forces come into play to try to explain the velocities of stars within our galaxy other than simple dark matter. And both of them predict that stars should be moving vertically with respect to the galactic plane at accelerations that we do not observe while a simple Cold Dark Matter halo can explain those measurements. Can these theories recover?

Firstly, why do we think dark matter exists at all?

There are quite a few reasons, actually. The first reason, which was discovered in the 1930s, is that galaxies don’t rotate at the right speeds if all they contain is the luminous matter we can see. Here is a picture of how we think galaxies should rotate versus how they actually rotate.

We can tell how fast stars are rotating because they are made of mostly hydrogen. Hydrogen emits light at a very particular wavelength of 21 centimeters and, if that wavelength is shifted to a smaller wavelength (blue-shifted) we attribute that shift to the star moving towards us, and if it shifted to a larger wavelength (red-shifted) we know it is moving away.

We can combine all the observations of red and blue shifts of stars to determine how fast they are moving. The problem is that we see stars in the outer rims of galaxies moving so fast they should be breaking free of the galaxy’s gravitational pull, but they don’t. Instead, galaxies rotate almost like a record on a record player, with the outer stars moving much faster than the inner ones.

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Dark matter?

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There are a lot of things wrong with human babies when they’re born, especially when we compare them to the newborns of other species. A newborn giraffe can walk within a couple hours of birth; our own human children require many months of laborious practice before they take their first step.

This extends to their eyesight, as well. Newborns can’t really see much. They don’t even have the muscles to focus their eyes, nor the knowledge of when something is “in focus”, so they can only really see things about a foot away from their faces.

(Why a foot away? Interestingly, this is about the distance between the newborn’s eyes and mom’s face, when she’s breastfeeding! One hypothesis is that babies learn what is “in focus” by studying the faces of their parent as the baby breastfeeds since it’s usually a fairly constant distance.)

Newborns are all nearsighted. More than a foot away? It’s going to be little more than a blur.

But vision improves rapidly; by the time a baby is 6–7 months old, they should be able to spot items at a pretty good distance, even able to look out a window and see objects outside. It also takes up to 4 months before babies have fully developed color vision.

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Private eyes, they’re watching you; they see your every move… Photo by Max Leveridge on Unsplash

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Starting a business can be an incredibly rewarding experience, both financially and personally. But it also takes a significant amount of dedication and hard work to get a business off the ground. If you’re willing to put in the effort, starting up a business from scratch could lead to significant opportunities. For example, after starting my business installing Christmas lights, I was eventually able to buy my family gifts after beginning with nothing.

Let’s cover some of the key steps for launching your own business and setting yourself up for success—everything from getting started on your business plan to marketing strategies. By following these steps, you can give yourself a solid chance of achieving success in your own business venture.

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getty

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There’s a lot of magical thinking surrounding retirement. The rule of thumb is to target about 80% of your current income for your retirement, and while that number is a little sketchy, it’s useful in that it highlights just how expensive retirement can be. When you’re young, you think retirement is so far away there’s no need to worry about it just yet. And as you get older, there are often plenty of ways to kid yourself that you’ll be fine even though you haven’t really been saving much money. Some folks think they’ll sell an asset like a house or a business and live off the proceeds. Others count on Social Security or assume downsizing and moving to a lower-cost area will solve all their problems.

And maybe all of that works out, but if you’re heading towards retirement age and you skipped the part about saving an enormous amount of money, the simple fact is you’re going to have to contemplate living off a relatively small income in your golden years. And you’re not alone—the average American has just $65,000 saved for retirement—and if you look at just folks who have reached retirement age, the number is just $255,200. That is…not a lot of money to live off, potentially for decades. The average Social Security payment is just $1,656.30 per month—that’s less than $20,000 a year.

Even if you can make your numbers work in terms of housing, food, and other necessities, the real retirement killer is going to be healthcare. Medicare helps, but even with it, your average out-of-pocket expense will be roughly $6,500 per year—which is almost a third of that average Social Security benefit. So if you’re staring down retirement and haven’t saved much money, are you completely out of luck? Not necessarily—but the time to make some moves is right now.

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Photo: Matej Kastelic (Shutterstock)

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Need tools to support your financial freedom? This workshop is for YOU! Join Kia Minor as she shares her expertise to set you on your path!

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Kia

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Social media can be mentally draining. And when mentally drained, you are more likely to be influenced by a high number of likes on posts – even to the point of clicking on ads for products you don’t need or want – according to our recent experiments on how social media affects behavior.

As a professor of advertising, I have studied social media behavior for years. In late 2022, my colleague Eric Haley and I conducted three online studies on Americans aged 18-65 to test how people under various mental loads respond to ads differently.

The control group in each study was given no introductory task – we just had them look at an ad. A second group had to memorize a nine-digit number and then look at the ad. The third group scrolled through their Instagram feed for 30 seconds and then looked at the ad. The first study used an ad for a meal prep service, the second was for ice cream and the third was for coffee beans.

The ad photo and caption were the same for everyone in each group, with only the number of likes manipulated. Participants randomly saw an ad with a few hundred likes or tens of thousands of likes. After viewing the ad, each participant rated how willing they would be to buy the product, and how much mental effort it took to think about the information. The group that used Instagram first were the most likely to want to buy the featured product when there were lots of likes or comments, and they also reported using the most mental effort to assess the ad.

In one study we asked people to explain why they wanted to buy a product, and those in the control group gave simple, rational answers for their choice: “I was thinking of the ice cream flavors and how they would taste.” Or, “I like the ad. It is simple and clean. It gets straight to the point …”

However, those who had just scrolled social media for 30 seconds often gave answers that made no sense. For example, some gave one-word answers like “food” or “plate.” Others explicitly told us it was difficult to process: “It had too many words and options in the picture.”

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Do you really need another water bottle, or is your brain just tired? Teera Konakan/Moment Collection/Getty Images

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It’s no secret that countries like the US and Canada receive an overwhelming amount of applications for work visas. In March this year, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it reached the cap for the number of US H1B visas that can be granted for the financial year 2024.
Most countries have stringent requirements for granting a work visa, the first being the availability of an offer letter. However, there are a few countries that allow individuals to stay and look for a job, even without an offer letter.

Listed below are a few such countries and their visa requirements:

Germany

Germany offers a job seeker visa where individuals can reside in the country for six months and look for a job. If you procure employment by the end of six months, you’re provided a German work visa.

The visa is only open to individuals who have five years of experience, financial resources to support their stay in the country, and proof of completed academic or vocational training. Individuals also need to hold a degree recognized in Germany.

Additionally, individuals from the following countries can’t apply for a job seeker visa — EU/EEA (European Union/European Economic Area), Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Israel, Japan, Canada, and the USA.

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