‘White Lotus’ villain Jon Gries reveals the true crimes that inspired his twisty take on Greg/Gary fixedfloat When Season 3 of “The White Lotus” premiered last month the shock was palpable when returning character Belinda recognized a familiar face at the resort in Thailand: Greg Hunt the wily suitor of the late Tanya McQuoid. As the season has unfolded Greg played by Jon Gries has emerged as an antagonist particularly after Belinda dove into the investigation surrounding Tanya’s death and learned that Greg who now goes by Gary evaded questioning by authorities. On a show famous for reinventing itself the same has been asked of the actor who says that playing the ever-shifting character has been a welcome challenge and like “White Lotus” itself full of twists. “In the beginning I totally played him for a guy who was you know on his last legs” Gries said in a recent interview with CNN referencing Greg’s very apparent ill health in the first season of “White Lotus” which premiered to rave reviews in summer 2021. He added: “When you play a character you want to find his empathetic side and you want to understand where they came from and what got them to where they are.” But when he was contacted by creator Mike White about appearing in Season 2 Gries realized he would have to adjust his framing of Greg despite having previously imagined a “comprehensive history” for him on his own. “White said ‘I’m writing it right now and I’m writing you and I just need to know here and now: If you’re in I’ll continue writing. If not I’ll stop’” Gries recalled.
‘A whole different mindset’ Accurate clockwork is one matter. But how future astronauts living and working on the lunar surface will experience time is a different question entirely. Кракен тор On Earth our sense of one day is governed by the fact that the planet completes one rotation every 24 hours giving most locations a consistent cycle of daylight and darkened nights. On the moon however the equator receives roughly 14 days of sunlight followed by 14 days of darkness. “It’s just a very very different concept” on the moon Betts said. “And NASA is talking about landing astronauts in the very interesting south polar region of the moon where you have permanently lit and permanently shadowed areas. So that’s a whole other set of confusion.” https://kra30c.cc kraken тор “It’ll be challenging” for those astronauts Betts added. “It’s so different than Earth and it’s just a whole different mindset.” That will be true no matter what time is displayed on the astronauts’ watches. Still precision timekeeping matters — not just for the sake of scientifically understanding the passage of time on the moon but also for setting up all the infrastructure necessary to carry out missions. The beauty of creating a time scale from scratch Gramling said is that scientists can take everything they have learned about timekeeping on Earth and apply it to a new system on the moon. And if scientists can get it right on the moon she added they can get it right later down the road if NASA fulfills its goal of sending astronauts deeper into the solar system. “We are very much looking at executing this on the moon learning what we can learn” Gramling said “so that we are prepared to do the same thing on Mars or other future bodies.”
Space time: The continual question If time moves differently on the peaks of mountains than the shores of the ocean you can imagine that things get even more bizarre the farther away from Earth you travel. kra31 cc To add more complication: Time also passes slower the faster a person or spacecraft is moving according to Einstein’s theory of special relativity. Astronauts on the International Space Station for example are lucky said Dr. Bijunath Patla a theoretical physicist with the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in a phone interview. Though the space station orbits about 200 miles 322 kilometers above Earth’s surface it also travels at high speeds — looping the planet 16 times per day — so the effects of relativity somewhat cancel each other out Patla said. For that reason astronauts on the orbiting laboratory can easily use Earth time to stay on schedule. https://kra30c.cc кракен ссылка For other missions — it’s not so simple. Fortunately scientists already have decades of experience contending with the complexities. Spacecraft for example are equipped with their own clocks called oscillators Gramling said. “They maintain their own time” Gramling said. “And most of our operations for spacecraft — even spacecraft that are all the way out at Pluto or the Kuiper Belt like New Horizons — rely on ground stations that are back on Earth. So everything they’re doing has to correlate with UTC.” But those spacecraft also rely on their own kept time Gramling said. Vehicles exploring deep into the solar system for example have to know — based on their own time scale — when they are approaching a planet in case the spacecraft needs to use that planetary body for navigational purposes she added. For 50 years scientists have also been able to observe atomic clocks that are tucked aboard GPS satellites which orbit Earth about 12550 miles 20200 kilometers away — or about one-nineteenth the distance between our planet and the moon. Studying those clocks has given scientists a great starting point to begin extrapolating further as they set out to establish a new time scale for the moon Patla said. “We can easily compare GPS clocks to clocks on the ground” Patla said adding that scientists have found a way to gently slow GPS clocks down making them tick more in-line with Earth-bound clocks. “Obviously it’s not as easy as it sounds but it’s easier than making a mess.”
Lunar clockwork What scientists know for certain is that they need to get precision timekeeping instruments to the moon. kra30cc Exactly who pays for lunar clocks which type of clocks will go and where they’ll be positioned are all questions that remain up in the air Gramling said. “We have to work all of this out” she said. “I don’t think we know yet. I think it will be an amalgamation of several different things.” https://kra30c.cc Кракен тор Atomic clocks Gramling noted are great for long-term stability and crystal oscillators have an advantage for short-term stability. “You never trust one clock” Gramling added. “And you never trust two clocks.” Clocks of various types could be placed inside satellites that orbit the moon or perhaps at the precise locations on the lunar surface that astronauts will one day visit. As for price an atomic clock worthy of space travel could cost around a few million dollars according Gramling with crystal oscillators coming in substantially cheaper. But Patla said you get what you pay for. “The very cheap oscillators may be off by milliseconds or even 10s of milliseconds” he added. “And that is important because for navigation purposes — we need to have the clocks synchronized to 10s of nanoseconds.” A network of clocks on the moon could work in concert to inform the new lunar time scale just as atomic clocks do for UTC on Earth. There will not Gramling added be different time zones on the moon. “There have been conversations about creating different zones with the answer: ‘No’” she said. “But that could change in the future.”
A tiny rainforest country is growing into a petrostate. A US oil company could reap the biggest rewards swell network Guyana’s destiny changed in 2015. US fossil fuel giant Exxon discovered nearly 11 billion barrels of oil in the deep water off the coast of this tiny rainforested country. It was one of the most spectacular oil discoveries of recent decades. By 2019 Exxon and its partners US oil company Hess and China-headquartered CNOOC had started producing the fossil fuel.? They now pump around 650000 barrels of oil a day with plans to more than double this to 1.3 million by 2027. Guyana now has the world’s highest expected oil production growth through 2035. This country — sandwiched between Brazil Venezuela and Suriname — has been hailed as a climate champion for the lush well-preserved forests that carpet nearly 90 of its land. It is on the path to becoming a petrostate at the same time as the impacts of the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis escalate. While the government says environmental protection and an oil industry can go hand-in-hand and low-income countries must be allowed to exploit their own resources critics say it’s a dangerous path in a warming world and the benefits may ultimately skew toward Exxon — not Guyana.
Mist and microlightning solflare To recreate a scenario that may have produced Earth’s first organic molecules researchers built upon experiments from 1953 when American chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey concocted a gas mixture mimicking the atmosphere of ancient Earth. Miller and Urey combined ammonia NH3 methane CH4 hydrogen H2 and water enclosed their “atmosphere” inside a glass sphere and jolted it with electricity producing simple amino acids containing carbon and nitrogen. The Miller-Urey experiment as it is now known supported the scientific theory of abiogenesis: that life could emerge from nonliving molecules. For the new study scientists revisited the 1953 experiments but directed their attention toward electrical activity on a smaller scale said senior study author Dr. Richard Zare the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Natural Science and professor of chemistry at Stanford University in California. Zare and his colleagues looked at electricity exchange between charged water droplets measuring between 1 micron and 20 microns in diameter. The width of a human hair is 100 microns. “The big droplets are positively charged. The little droplets are negatively charged” Zare told CNN. “When droplets that have opposite charges are close together electrons can jump from the negatively charged droplet to the positively charged droplet.” The researchers mixed ammonia carbon dioxide methane and nitrogen in a glass bulb then sprayed the gases with water mist using a high-speed camera to capture faint flashes of microlightning in the vapor. When they examined the bulb’s contents they found organic molecules with carbon-nitrogen bonds. These included the amino acid glycine and uracil a nucleotide base in RNA. “We discovered no new chemistry; we have actually reproduced all the chemistry that Miller and Urey did in 1953” Zare said. Nor did the team discover new physics he added — the experiments were based on known principles of electrostatics. “What we have done for the first time is we have seen that little droplets when they’re formed from water actually emit light and get this spark” Zare said. “That’s new. And that spark causes all types of chemical transformations.”
Mindful wellness challenges If you’re the type of person who thrives on challenges and pushing your limits this doesn’t mean you need to shy away from wellness challenges altogether. But before diving in take a step back and ask yourself if you’re pursuing the challenge for the right reasons McGregor said. velodrome finance Some people want to try these challenges because they believe something is missing from their life and they’re looking to attain “worth” or receive validation McGregor noted. A good way to assess your motivation is by considering whether the challenge will benefit your health or if it’s about showcasing your accomplishments on social media or some other reason. Before trying any new trend make sure you have the foundation to handle it and be aware of any potential risks McGregor said. For casual runners this might mean signing up for a 5K but building your endurance gradually while incorporating other strength training exercises into your routine. For more intense challenges such as a marathon McGregor encourages people to consult with professionals or a coach who can monitor your progress and condition along the way. Focusing on sustainable habits Both McGregor and Curran emphasize the importance of fostering sustainable health habits before embarking on more extreme challenges. Rather than chasing the idea of being “healthy” McGregor suggests focusing on actual healthful behaviors and starting small. If you’re a highly sedentary person and want to add more movement to your day try doing lunges while brushing your teeth or taking short walks throughout your typical routine.
Scientists redid an experiment that showed how life on Earth could have started. They found a new possibility safepal In the 1931 movie “Frankenstein” Dr. Henry Frankenstein howling his triumph was an electrifying moment in more ways than one. As massive bolts of lightning and energy crackled Frankenstein’s monster stirred on a laboratory table its corpse brought to life by the power of electricity. Electrical energy may also have sparked the beginnings of life on Earth billions of years ago though with a bit less scenery-chewing than that classic film scene. Earth is around 4.5 billion years old and the oldest direct fossil evidence of ancient life — stromatolites or microscopic organisms preserved in layers known as microbial mats — is about 3.5 billion years old. However some scientists suspect life originated even earlier emerging from accumulated organic molecules in primitive bodies of water a mixture sometimes referred to as primordial soup. But where did that organic material come from in the first place? Researchers decades ago proposed that lightning caused chemical reactions in ancient Earth’s oceans and spontaneously produced the organic molecules. Now new research published March 14 in the journal Science Advances suggests that fizzes of barely visible “microlightning” generated between charged droplets of water mist could have been potent enough to cook up amino acids from inorganic material. Amino acids — organic molecules that combine to form proteins — are life’s most basic building blocks and would have been the first step toward the evolution of life.
Family affair rhino fi Americans Brittany and Blake Bowen had never even been to Ecuador when in 2021 they decided to move to the South American country with their four children. Tired of “long commutes and never enough money” in the US the Bowens say they love their new Ecuadorian life. “We hope that maybe we’ll have grandkids here one day.” Erik and Erin Eagleman moved to Switzerland from Wisconsin with their three children in 2023. “It feels safe here” they tell CNN of their new outdoorsy lifestyle in Basel close to the borders with France and Germany. Their youngest daughter even walks to elementary school by herself. For adventures with your own family be it weekend breaks or something longer-term our partners at CNN Underscored a product review and recommendations guide owned by CNN have this roundup of the best kids’ luggage sets and bags. Starry starry nights For close to 100 years Michelin stars have been a sign of culinary excellence awarded only to the great and good. Georges Blanc the world’s longest-standing Michelin-starred restaurant has boasted a three-star rating since 1981 but this month the Michelin guide announced that the restaurant in eastern France was losing a star. More culinary reputations were enhanced this week when Asia’s 50 best restaurants for 2025 were revealed. The winner was a Bangkok restaurant which is no stranger to garlands while second and third place went to two Hong Kong eateries. You don’t need to go to a heaving metropolis for excellent food however. A 200-year-old cottage on a remote stretch of Ireland’s Atlantic coast has been given a Michelin star. At the time of awarding Michelin called it “surely the most rural” of its newest winners.
Challenging our perceptions of ‘perfection’ traderjoexyz exchange With health influencers raising the bar for success the wellness space now often feels like a performative space where people strive to showcase peak physical and mental strength. While seeing others’ achievements can be motivating it can also be discouraging if your progress doesn’t match theirs. Each person is chasing the perfect version of themselves — whether it’s a body or a lifestyle — which is dangerous because this is typically an impossible or dangerous version to achieve Curran said. He added that this type of comparison creates a dangerous cycle in which people constantly feel dissatisfied with their own progress. “It’s a fantasy in many ways and once you start chasing after it you constantly find yourself embroiled in a sense of doubt and deficit” he said. Curran also noted that wellness challenges can be particularly damaging for women who struggle with perfectionism as they tend to be bombarded with impossible beauty standards and societal expectations. Renee McGregor a UK-based dietitian who specializes in eating disorders and athlete performance encourages people to approach wellness trends with curiosity and skepticism. That’s because some influencers and celebrities could be promoting products because there’s a financial benefit for them. “The thing to ask yourself about the person you’re taking advice from is what do they gain from it?” McGregor said. “If they are going to gain financially then you know that they could be willing to sell you a lie.” Whether you want to try a new challenge or product that promises amazing results McGregor suggests doing your research and seeking diverse perspectives including consulting with doctors when possible.
‘White Lotus’ villain Jon Gries reveals the true crimes that inspired his twisty take on Greg/Gary fixedfloat When Season 3 of “The White Lotus” premiered last month the shock was palpable when returning character Belinda recognized a familiar face at the resort in Thailand: Greg Hunt the wily suitor of the late Tanya McQuoid. As the season has unfolded Greg played by Jon Gries has emerged as an antagonist particularly after Belinda dove into the investigation surrounding Tanya’s death and learned that Greg who now goes by Gary evaded questioning by authorities. On a show famous for reinventing itself the same has been asked of the actor who says that playing the ever-shifting character has been a welcome challenge and like “White Lotus” itself full of twists. “In the beginning I totally played him for a guy who was you know on his last legs” Gries said in a recent interview with CNN referencing Greg’s very apparent ill health in the first season of “White Lotus” which premiered to rave reviews in summer 2021. He added: “When you play a character you want to find his empathetic side and you want to understand where they came from and what got them to where they are.” But when he was contacted by creator Mike White about appearing in Season 2 Gries realized he would have to adjust his framing of Greg despite having previously imagined a “comprehensive history” for him on his own. “White said ‘I’m writing it right now and I’m writing you and I just need to know here and now: If you’re in I’ll continue writing. If not I’ll stop’” Gries recalled.
‘A whole different mindset’ Accurate clockwork is one matter. But how future astronauts living and working on the lunar surface will experience time is a different question entirely. Кракен тор On Earth our sense of one day is governed by the fact that the planet completes one rotation every 24 hours giving most locations a consistent cycle of daylight and darkened nights. On the moon however the equator receives roughly 14 days of sunlight followed by 14 days of darkness. “It’s just a very very different concept” on the moon Betts said. “And NASA is talking about landing astronauts in the very interesting south polar region of the moon where you have permanently lit and permanently shadowed areas. So that’s a whole other set of confusion.” https://kra30c.cc kraken тор “It’ll be challenging” for those astronauts Betts added. “It’s so different than Earth and it’s just a whole different mindset.” That will be true no matter what time is displayed on the astronauts’ watches. Still precision timekeeping matters — not just for the sake of scientifically understanding the passage of time on the moon but also for setting up all the infrastructure necessary to carry out missions. The beauty of creating a time scale from scratch Gramling said is that scientists can take everything they have learned about timekeeping on Earth and apply it to a new system on the moon. And if scientists can get it right on the moon she added they can get it right later down the road if NASA fulfills its goal of sending astronauts deeper into the solar system. “We are very much looking at executing this on the moon learning what we can learn” Gramling said “so that we are prepared to do the same thing on Mars or other future bodies.”
Space time: The continual question If time moves differently on the peaks of mountains than the shores of the ocean you can imagine that things get even more bizarre the farther away from Earth you travel. kra31 cc To add more complication: Time also passes slower the faster a person or spacecraft is moving according to Einstein’s theory of special relativity. Astronauts on the International Space Station for example are lucky said Dr. Bijunath Patla a theoretical physicist with the US National Institute of Standards and Technology in a phone interview. Though the space station orbits about 200 miles 322 kilometers above Earth’s surface it also travels at high speeds — looping the planet 16 times per day — so the effects of relativity somewhat cancel each other out Patla said. For that reason astronauts on the orbiting laboratory can easily use Earth time to stay on schedule. https://kra30c.cc кракен ссылка For other missions — it’s not so simple. Fortunately scientists already have decades of experience contending with the complexities. Spacecraft for example are equipped with their own clocks called oscillators Gramling said. “They maintain their own time” Gramling said. “And most of our operations for spacecraft — even spacecraft that are all the way out at Pluto or the Kuiper Belt like New Horizons — rely on ground stations that are back on Earth. So everything they’re doing has to correlate with UTC.” But those spacecraft also rely on their own kept time Gramling said. Vehicles exploring deep into the solar system for example have to know — based on their own time scale — when they are approaching a planet in case the spacecraft needs to use that planetary body for navigational purposes she added. For 50 years scientists have also been able to observe atomic clocks that are tucked aboard GPS satellites which orbit Earth about 12550 miles 20200 kilometers away — or about one-nineteenth the distance between our planet and the moon. Studying those clocks has given scientists a great starting point to begin extrapolating further as they set out to establish a new time scale for the moon Patla said. “We can easily compare GPS clocks to clocks on the ground” Patla said adding that scientists have found a way to gently slow GPS clocks down making them tick more in-line with Earth-bound clocks. “Obviously it’s not as easy as it sounds but it’s easier than making a mess.”
Lunar clockwork What scientists know for certain is that they need to get precision timekeeping instruments to the moon. kra30cc Exactly who pays for lunar clocks which type of clocks will go and where they’ll be positioned are all questions that remain up in the air Gramling said. “We have to work all of this out” she said. “I don’t think we know yet. I think it will be an amalgamation of several different things.” https://kra30c.cc Кракен тор Atomic clocks Gramling noted are great for long-term stability and crystal oscillators have an advantage for short-term stability. “You never trust one clock” Gramling added. “And you never trust two clocks.” Clocks of various types could be placed inside satellites that orbit the moon or perhaps at the precise locations on the lunar surface that astronauts will one day visit. As for price an atomic clock worthy of space travel could cost around a few million dollars according Gramling with crystal oscillators coming in substantially cheaper. But Patla said you get what you pay for. “The very cheap oscillators may be off by milliseconds or even 10s of milliseconds” he added. “And that is important because for navigation purposes — we need to have the clocks synchronized to 10s of nanoseconds.” A network of clocks on the moon could work in concert to inform the new lunar time scale just as atomic clocks do for UTC on Earth. There will not Gramling added be different time zones on the moon. “There have been conversations about creating different zones with the answer: ‘No’” she said. “But that could change in the future.”
A tiny rainforest country is growing into a petrostate. A US oil company could reap the biggest rewards swell network Guyana’s destiny changed in 2015. US fossil fuel giant Exxon discovered nearly 11 billion barrels of oil in the deep water off the coast of this tiny rainforested country. It was one of the most spectacular oil discoveries of recent decades. By 2019 Exxon and its partners US oil company Hess and China-headquartered CNOOC had started producing the fossil fuel.? They now pump around 650000 barrels of oil a day with plans to more than double this to 1.3 million by 2027. Guyana now has the world’s highest expected oil production growth through 2035. This country — sandwiched between Brazil Venezuela and Suriname — has been hailed as a climate champion for the lush well-preserved forests that carpet nearly 90 of its land. It is on the path to becoming a petrostate at the same time as the impacts of the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis escalate. While the government says environmental protection and an oil industry can go hand-in-hand and low-income countries must be allowed to exploit their own resources critics say it’s a dangerous path in a warming world and the benefits may ultimately skew toward Exxon — not Guyana.
Mist and microlightning solflare To recreate a scenario that may have produced Earth’s first organic molecules researchers built upon experiments from 1953 when American chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey concocted a gas mixture mimicking the atmosphere of ancient Earth. Miller and Urey combined ammonia NH3 methane CH4 hydrogen H2 and water enclosed their “atmosphere” inside a glass sphere and jolted it with electricity producing simple amino acids containing carbon and nitrogen. The Miller-Urey experiment as it is now known supported the scientific theory of abiogenesis: that life could emerge from nonliving molecules. For the new study scientists revisited the 1953 experiments but directed their attention toward electrical activity on a smaller scale said senior study author Dr. Richard Zare the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of Natural Science and professor of chemistry at Stanford University in California. Zare and his colleagues looked at electricity exchange between charged water droplets measuring between 1 micron and 20 microns in diameter. The width of a human hair is 100 microns. “The big droplets are positively charged. The little droplets are negatively charged” Zare told CNN. “When droplets that have opposite charges are close together electrons can jump from the negatively charged droplet to the positively charged droplet.” The researchers mixed ammonia carbon dioxide methane and nitrogen in a glass bulb then sprayed the gases with water mist using a high-speed camera to capture faint flashes of microlightning in the vapor. When they examined the bulb’s contents they found organic molecules with carbon-nitrogen bonds. These included the amino acid glycine and uracil a nucleotide base in RNA. “We discovered no new chemistry; we have actually reproduced all the chemistry that Miller and Urey did in 1953” Zare said. Nor did the team discover new physics he added — the experiments were based on known principles of electrostatics. “What we have done for the first time is we have seen that little droplets when they’re formed from water actually emit light and get this spark” Zare said. “That’s new. And that spark causes all types of chemical transformations.”
Mindful wellness challenges If you’re the type of person who thrives on challenges and pushing your limits this doesn’t mean you need to shy away from wellness challenges altogether. But before diving in take a step back and ask yourself if you’re pursuing the challenge for the right reasons McGregor said. velodrome finance Some people want to try these challenges because they believe something is missing from their life and they’re looking to attain “worth” or receive validation McGregor noted. A good way to assess your motivation is by considering whether the challenge will benefit your health or if it’s about showcasing your accomplishments on social media or some other reason. Before trying any new trend make sure you have the foundation to handle it and be aware of any potential risks McGregor said. For casual runners this might mean signing up for a 5K but building your endurance gradually while incorporating other strength training exercises into your routine. For more intense challenges such as a marathon McGregor encourages people to consult with professionals or a coach who can monitor your progress and condition along the way. Focusing on sustainable habits Both McGregor and Curran emphasize the importance of fostering sustainable health habits before embarking on more extreme challenges. Rather than chasing the idea of being “healthy” McGregor suggests focusing on actual healthful behaviors and starting small. If you’re a highly sedentary person and want to add more movement to your day try doing lunges while brushing your teeth or taking short walks throughout your typical routine.
Scientists redid an experiment that showed how life on Earth could have started. They found a new possibility safepal In the 1931 movie “Frankenstein” Dr. Henry Frankenstein howling his triumph was an electrifying moment in more ways than one. As massive bolts of lightning and energy crackled Frankenstein’s monster stirred on a laboratory table its corpse brought to life by the power of electricity. Electrical energy may also have sparked the beginnings of life on Earth billions of years ago though with a bit less scenery-chewing than that classic film scene. Earth is around 4.5 billion years old and the oldest direct fossil evidence of ancient life — stromatolites or microscopic organisms preserved in layers known as microbial mats — is about 3.5 billion years old. However some scientists suspect life originated even earlier emerging from accumulated organic molecules in primitive bodies of water a mixture sometimes referred to as primordial soup. But where did that organic material come from in the first place? Researchers decades ago proposed that lightning caused chemical reactions in ancient Earth’s oceans and spontaneously produced the organic molecules. Now new research published March 14 in the journal Science Advances suggests that fizzes of barely visible “microlightning” generated between charged droplets of water mist could have been potent enough to cook up amino acids from inorganic material. Amino acids — organic molecules that combine to form proteins — are life’s most basic building blocks and would have been the first step toward the evolution of life.
Family affair rhino fi Americans Brittany and Blake Bowen had never even been to Ecuador when in 2021 they decided to move to the South American country with their four children. Tired of “long commutes and never enough money” in the US the Bowens say they love their new Ecuadorian life. “We hope that maybe we’ll have grandkids here one day.” Erik and Erin Eagleman moved to Switzerland from Wisconsin with their three children in 2023. “It feels safe here” they tell CNN of their new outdoorsy lifestyle in Basel close to the borders with France and Germany. Their youngest daughter even walks to elementary school by herself. For adventures with your own family be it weekend breaks or something longer-term our partners at CNN Underscored a product review and recommendations guide owned by CNN have this roundup of the best kids’ luggage sets and bags. Starry starry nights For close to 100 years Michelin stars have been a sign of culinary excellence awarded only to the great and good. Georges Blanc the world’s longest-standing Michelin-starred restaurant has boasted a three-star rating since 1981 but this month the Michelin guide announced that the restaurant in eastern France was losing a star. More culinary reputations were enhanced this week when Asia’s 50 best restaurants for 2025 were revealed. The winner was a Bangkok restaurant which is no stranger to garlands while second and third place went to two Hong Kong eateries. You don’t need to go to a heaving metropolis for excellent food however. A 200-year-old cottage on a remote stretch of Ireland’s Atlantic coast has been given a Michelin star. At the time of awarding Michelin called it “surely the most rural” of its newest winners.
Challenging our perceptions of ‘perfection’ traderjoexyz exchange With health influencers raising the bar for success the wellness space now often feels like a performative space where people strive to showcase peak physical and mental strength. While seeing others’ achievements can be motivating it can also be discouraging if your progress doesn’t match theirs. Each person is chasing the perfect version of themselves — whether it’s a body or a lifestyle — which is dangerous because this is typically an impossible or dangerous version to achieve Curran said. He added that this type of comparison creates a dangerous cycle in which people constantly feel dissatisfied with their own progress. “It’s a fantasy in many ways and once you start chasing after it you constantly find yourself embroiled in a sense of doubt and deficit” he said. Curran also noted that wellness challenges can be particularly damaging for women who struggle with perfectionism as they tend to be bombarded with impossible beauty standards and societal expectations. Renee McGregor a UK-based dietitian who specializes in eating disorders and athlete performance encourages people to approach wellness trends with curiosity and skepticism. That’s because some influencers and celebrities could be promoting products because there’s a financial benefit for them. “The thing to ask yourself about the person you’re taking advice from is what do they gain from it?” McGregor said. “If they are going to gain financially then you know that they could be willing to sell you a lie.” Whether you want to try a new challenge or product that promises amazing results McGregor suggests doing your research and seeking diverse perspectives including consulting with doctors when possible.