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There is now a good body of research on the neuroscience of meditation, showing that it improves self-awareness, emotion regulation, self-control, and many other things. Most people, if they are honest with themselves, adopt some sort of habit of dealing with the situation when they feel stressed or down. Think about food, alcohol, fate, entertainment, shopping, even overwork and excessive exercise. Most adults have never received formal education on what to do with negative emotions.Addiction isn't just about substance use. It's about trying to avoid a feeling. It's about trying to escape. You know it's not good for you, but you do it anyway because you don't like the current state you're in, whether it's feeling pain, sorrow, loss, or shame.Why? Because...

Revelers in Spain and Portugal ventured out into the temperate spring evening on Saturday, hoping for a memorable night. No one expected a visitor from space to explode above their heads.At 11.46pm in Portugal, a fireball streaked across the sky, leaving behind a smoldering trail of glowing graffiti. Footage shared on social media shows jaws agape as the dark night briefly turns to day, blazing in shades of snowy white, otherworldly green and arctic blue.Rocky asteroids cause sky-high streaks as they self-destruct in Earth's atmosphere with some frequency. But over the weekend, the projectile hurtled toward Earth at a remarkable speed: about 100,000 miles per hour, more than double that expected from a typical asteroid. Experts say it had a strange trajectory, not matching that nor...

Last summer, on their way to a doctor's appointment near their home in Manhattan, Paul Skye Lehrman and Linnea Sage listened to a podcast about the rise of artificial intelligence and the threat it poses to the livelihoods of writers, actors, and other entertainment professionals.The topic was especially important for young newlyweds. They made a living as voice actors, and artificial intelligence technologies began to generate voices that sounded real.But the podcast took an unexpected turn. To highlight the threat posed by artificial intelligence, the host conducted a long interview with a talking chatbot named Poe. He looked just like Mr. Lehrman.“He was interviewing my voice about the dangers of artificial intelligence and the damage it could have on the entertainment industry,”...

When pro-Palestinian student protesters took over Columbia University's Hamilton Hall last month and renamed it “Hind's Hall,” the banner they unfurled featured images of a cartoon character created over 50 years ago who symbolizes the resilience of the Palestinians.On either side of the text were two images of a barefoot boy with tattered clothes and spiky hair, his back to us.The character is called Handala (variously transliterated as Hanzala or Handzala), a name derived from a native plant that is deeply rooted, persistent, and bears bitter fruit, and has become a powerful symbol of the Palestinian struggle. The image was created in 1969 by Palestinian political cartoonist Naji Al-Ali, one of the most read cartoonists in the Arab world, who was murdered in London in 1987. (The...

Overdose deaths in the United States fell slightly last year, the first decline in five years, according to preliminary federal data released Wednesday.The rare good news in the decades-long addiction crisis is attributable mostly to a decline in deaths from synthetic opioids, mainly fentanyl, said researchers at the National Center for Health Statistics, who compiled the numbers.But the full picture of the drug death toll remains bleak. Although deaths from opioids have decreased, deaths from stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine have increased. And some states, including Oregon and Washington, continued to see sharp increases in overall overdose deaths.Overall overdoses in 2023 were estimated at 107,543, down from 111,029 in 2022, a decline of 3%. Opioid deaths decreased by 3...

Russia and Ukraine targeted each other's territories on Sunday with drone attacks and airstrikes that hit urban centers and energy facilities, as both sides look for ways to inflict damage beyond the battlefield.The Russian military said it shot down nearly 60 Ukrainian drones over the Krasnodar region in southwestern Russia, which Ukraine has increasingly targeted in recent weeks because it hosts energy and military facilities supporting combat operations .Local Russian officials said an oil refinery was hit in the attack. A Ukrainian security official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military matters, said Ukrainian drones hit the refinery and a military airfield in the region. Russian officials have not commented on the reported attack at the airport.Ukrain...

As in the United States, TikTok is popular in Taiwan, used by a quarter of the island's 23 million residents.People post videos of themselves buying trendy clothes, dressing up as video game characters, and playing pranks on their roommates. Influencers share their choreographies and discuss whether sticky rice dumplings are better in northern or southern Taiwan.Taiwanese users of TikTok, owned by Chinese internet giant ByteDance, are also being served the kind of pro-China content that the US Congress has cited as a reason to pass a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok in America.A recent example is a video showing a Republican congressman, Rob Wittman of Virginia, stoking fears that a vote for the ruling party in Taiwan's January election would prompt a surge in American arms ...

Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel's war cabinet, presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an ultimatum on Saturday, saying he will leave the government if he does not soon develop a plan for the future of the war in Gaza.While Gantz's departure would not overthrow the country's emergency wartime government, the move would further strain a fragile coalition that has provided Netanyahu's far-right government with a boost of international legitimacy, and would make the prime minister once again more dependent on the government. its intransigent partners.“If we choose the path of fanatics, dragging the country into the abyss, we will be forced to leave the government,” Gantz said in a televised news conference. “We will turn to the people and build a government...

Engineers and scientists have an enduring fascination with spider silk. Similar to the typical silkworm silk from which comfortable sheets are made, but much stronger, the material inspired the invention of lighter, more breathable body armor and materials that could make aircraft components stronger without adding weight. Researchers are even using examples from spider webs to design sensitive microphones that may one day be used to treat hearing loss and deafness and to improve other listening devices.Spiders use their webs like huge external eardrums. A team of scientists from Binghamton University and Cornell University reported in 2022 that the webs allow the arachnids to detect sound from 10 feet away.When you hear a sound through your ear, what you're actually experiencing ar...

Russian forces continued to advance heavily into northeastern Ukraine on Saturday, closing in on a village about 10 miles from the Outer Ring of Kharkiv and raising fears that the city, Ukraine's second largest, could soon be in the range of Russian artillery.The Ukrainian army said Saturday that Russian troops attempted to break through its defenses near the village of Lyptsi, which lies directly north of Kharkiv. The attacks were repelled, but battlefield maps compiled by independent groups that analyzed publicly available videos of the fighting showed that Russian troops had almost reached the outskirts of the village.Ukraine's Khartia Brigade, which is defending Lyptsi, posted a video on Telegram on Friday afternoon in which Russian soldiers could be seen advancing on foot tow...