Awards season is upon us, which means many of the movies gunning for Oscar nominations are hitting theaters and streaming platforms. From The Wild Robot (favored in the best animated film category) to buzzy best picture contender Conclave, here’s how to watch the season’s top flicks so far.
Must Reads
Part one of Cher’s memoir is out tomorrow — and you can read an excerpt
Why Your Bedtime Routine Might Benefit From a To-Do List
Gatot Adriansyah/ iStock
Tossing and turning in bed is an all-too-familiar experience for many of us — roughly a third of U.S. adults have symptoms of insomnia. As much as we love our sleep masks and bedtime podcasts, the more tips to drift off into dreamland the better, and some researchers have made the case for the tried-and-true to-do list. Per the BBC, one previous study found that workers at a German IT company slept better when they didn’t have any “unfinished tasks,” and another from 2019 explicitly tested the impact of making a to-do list before bed. The authors of the latter paper found the group of participants who jotted things down fell asleep 15 minutes faster, on average,than those who had their tasks simply swirling in their heads. The task-writing group also dozed off quicker than those who wrote down a list of things they had already achieved. Although thinking of tasks may not seem like a recipe for rest, lead author Michael Scullin told the BBC the ritual is an act of “cognitive offloading.” In this sense, the list serves as a filing system of sorts to relieve mental load, which can then reduce stress and make getting a good night’s sleep easier. So how much should you write? Scullin said being specific and comprehensive is best, noting participants who wrote 10 or more tasks snoozed the fastest.
Together With Pacaso
From Hard Hats to High Growth
When lifelong dreams come true, it’s truly special. And Austin Allison’s dream of building something impactful in real estate has become a remarkable reality. After helping grow Zillow into a $16 billion industry leader, he’s finally addressing a $1.3 trillion need. Meet Pacaso. The company empowers people to realize the dream of owning a vacation home. Through Pacaso’s streamlined digital platform, buyers purchase co-ownership shares of fully managed, luxury vacation properties — substantially lowering the costs of and barriers to vacation ownership. The impact has been incredible, with more than 1,500 buyers fulfilling ownership dreams and Pacaso making nearly $100 million in gross profits in just three years. Now, for the first time, you can join SoftBank and Howard Schultz as a Pacaso shareholder as they scale.
Disclosure: This is a paid advertisement for Pacaso’s Regulation A offering. Please read the offering circular at invest.pacaso.com.
Tech
New AI Tool Can Identify “Invisible Cancer” During Brain Surgery: Study
Chris Hedly, Michigan Medicine
From accelerating research to predicting heart attacks, artificial intelligence has been helping move the medical field forward, and a new tool that can rapidly detect hidden brain tumor cells during surgery is one of the latest innovations driving progress. Called FastGlioma, the open-source, AI-based diagnostic system reveals cancerous tissue that neurosurgeons may not otherwise have been able to identify, allowing them to remove it immediately or target it afterward with other interventions. The system was trained on a dataset of more than 11,000 tumor specimens and 4 million microscope views, which enables it to accurately distinguish between healthy cells and malignant gliomas in just 10 seconds. “This technique will improve our ability to identify tumors and hopefully improve survival due to the added tumor being removed,” Dr. Shawn Hervey-Jumper, co-author of a study detailing the system, said in a news release. “This model provides physicians with real-time, accurate, and clinically actionable diagnostic information within seconds of tissue biopsy.” Learn more and check out an interactive demo of the tool.
Sports
Olympic Skiing Champion Lindsey Vonn Is Officially Out of Retirement
ANDERS WIKLUND/AFP via Getty Images
Lindsey Vonn is getting back on the slopes. The three-time Olympic medalist is rejoining the U.S. Ski Team, five years after announcing her retirement from the sport. This news comes seven months after she received a right knee replacement, a surgery that has allowed her to ski again without pain, she told The New York Times. “I had a smile so wide it was coming through the back of my helmet,” Vonn, 40, said of the surprising realization that she could return to racing. She called her un-retirement “amazing and definitely not planned.” Vonn is back in training with the team, but it’s not yet known which events are in her future — only time will tell if she’ll be competing in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. “I’m trying not to get too far ahead of myself because I have quite a few hoops to jump through,” Vonn said, adding, “But I’m not going to put myself in a position to fail. My goal is to enjoy this, and hopefully that road takes me to World Cup races. I wouldn’t be back on the U.S. ski team if I didn’t have intentions.” Stay tuned!
In Other News
Los Angeles will build a facility to convert wastewater into 20 million gallons of clean drinking water every day (read more)
A new vaccine is showing promising results for patients with a hard-to-treat form of breast cancer (read more)
Trailblazer Maria Tallchief, the first prima ballerina in the U.S., has been honored with a Barbie doll (read more)
An American warship was found at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, 82 years after sinking during World War II (read more)
“It’s triplets!” Three red panda cubs were born at a zoo in Nebraska, and they couldn’t be any cuter (read more)
Inspiring Story
A fitting name for an impressive teen
At 15 years old, Legacy Jackson has already earned a reputation as a humanitarian. The teen started “Little Legacies,” a nonprofit to help fellow youngsters give back — and became the youngest TED Talk speaker in Missouri last year. But she’s not one to bask in the attention, saying, “I just feel like I’m just doing what I’m supposed to be doing.” Keep at it, Legacy!
Photo of the Day
Equal Justice Initiative
The late Rep. John Lewis has been memorialized with a statue in his home state of Alabama. This sculpture, titled Steadfast Stride Toward Justice, captures Lewis when he was just 25 and led hundreds of people in a march to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, an event now known as “Bloody Sunday.” It’s located in Montgomery, in the Equal Justice Initiative’s Freedom Plaza. “I just think the entire state of Alabama owes John Lewis so much because he pulled us all out of the darkness of Jim Crow and racial segregation,” said the initiative’s executive director, Bryan Stevenson, per the Associated Press. “He created the opportunities that we get to celebrate in so many of our public spaces, from football fields to basketball places. It wouldn’t have been possible without his courage.”
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