Saturday 26th April 2025

“Is He Threatening Enough?” - Vulture (No paywall)

The role of Tony Soprano came down to three actors. Inside an HBO conference room, Sopranos creator David Chase needed convincing.

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Sweeping tariffs could threaten the US manufacturing rebound - MIT Technology Review (No paywall)

They won’t bring back manufacturing, and they could stunt our ability to make tomorrow's breakthroughs.

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Ask Ethan: When do stars turn the most mass into energy?

Deep inside every star in the Universe, an incredible process occurs: the nuclear fusion of light elements and isotopes into heavier ones. Because heavier elements (at least, up to iron) have slightly lower rest masses than the sum of the light elements masses that fuse into them, the act of nuclear fusion in stars releases energy via Einstein’s most famous equation: E = mc². That energy powers the stars and causes them to shine, and as stars run out of a particular type of fuel in their cores, they evolve into the next stage of their lives until they run out of fuel entirely.

At least, that’s the conventional story you’ve likely heard. But it turns out that the tale I just related, although simplified, contains a number of common misconceptions that are present even among professional astronomers. I got the motivation to look a little deeper and clear some of these up after being prompted by a question from our reader Greg Hallock, who wrote to ask:

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Your life is at the mercy of seemingly random tiny events

BRIAN KLAAS: My name is Brian Klaas. I'm an associate professor in global politics at University College, London. And I'm the author of "Fluke: Chance, Chaos, and Why Everything We Do Matters."

- [Interviewer] The smallest moments have the largest impacts, with Brian Klaas. Part one, understanding flukes. What is the core argument of your book, "Fluke."

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Research: When Leaders Express Positivity Early On, Employees Perform Better

The emotional tenor of a leader’s expressions can have a major impact on their team. While positivity can make their workers feel supported and inspired, negativity can sometimes help employees understand how to grow. In a new study, researchers examined whether the timing of these emotional expressions mattered in terms of worker performance. An analysis of nearly 10,000 consultants and 245 student-athletes found that leaders’ early positivity (at the start of a project or year) was the biggest predictor of team success, especially if partnered with a little negativity at a project’s midpoint. When leaders express positivity during an early stage, the researchers found, team members felt more highly respected and desired to maintain that respect throughout the year.

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Behold the Social Security Administration's AI Training Video

Amidst the chaos and upheaval at the Social Security Administration (SSA) caused by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), employees have now been asked to integrate the use of a generative AI chatbot into their daily work.

But before any of them can use it, they all need to watch a four-minute training video featuring an animated, four-fingered woman crudely drawn in a style that would not look out of place on websites created in the early part of this century.


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Apple May Shift to Making US iPhones in India. It Won't Be Easy

According to the Financial Times, which cites sources “familiar with the matter,” Apple plans to assemble in India all iPhones intended for the US by the end of 2026. The majority of Apple’s iPhones are currently made in China, but Chinese-made products have become a toxic asset for US import.

The US government has imposed a 145 percent tariff on goods from China. While smartphones are included in a 90-day reprieve, announced in early April, President Trump has indicated this exclusion is indeed a temporary one. Ready to pay $2,949 for a base storage iPhone 17 Pro Max?


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The Meta Trial Shows the Dangers of Selling Out

Meta has a lot at stake in the current FTC lawsuit against it. In theory a negative verdict could result in a company breakup. But CEO Mark Zuckerberg once faced an even bigger existential threat. Back in 2006, his investors and even his employees were pressuring him to sell his two-year-old startup for a quick payoff. Facebook was still a college-based social network, and several companies were interested in buying it. The most serious offer came from Yahoo, which offered a stunning $1 billion. Zuckerberg, though, believed he could grow the company into something worth much more. The pressure was tremendous, and at one point he blinked, agreeing in principle to sell. But immediately after that, a dip in Yahoo stock led its leader at the time, Terry Semel, to ask for a price adjustment. Zuckerberg seized the opportunity to shut down negotiations; Facebook would remain in his hands.

"That was by far the most stressful time in my life," Zuckerberg told me years later. So it's ironic to observe, through the testimony of this trial, how he treated two other sets of founders in very similar situations to him—but whom he successfully bought out.


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The 9 Best Wine Glasses for Every Kind of Wine (2025)

All products featured on Wired are independently selected by our editors. However, we may receive compensation from retailers and/or from purchases of products through these links.

A wine glass is not just a wine glass. It is form and function, status and culture, history and modernity, all in a single object. It's a tool we use to consume something highly sought after, and at the same time, the tool itself is a subject of great inquiry, even obsession. Some people are really into wine, but others are every bit as much consumed by the glass it's served in.


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NASA's Perseverance Rover Finds Strange Rocks on Mars

The NASA rover Perseverance recently discovered a strange rock on Mars, which appears to be made up of small rounded stones a few hundred millimeters in diameter. NASA’s research team is trying to determine its origin.

Perseverance was launched in July 2020 with the mission of searching for traces of microorganisms that may have existed on Mars in ancient times. It carries seven scientific instruments, including SuperCam, which uses cameras, lasers, and spectrometers to study the Martian surface, and Mastcam-Z, a camera with a special filter to increase resolution, which is used to record high-definition video as well as panoramic color and 3D images. The rover is exploring the Jezero Crater, a region of Mars thought to have once been a river delta.


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