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Why abandon and dense and robust town? For early civilization the answer might lie in city planning — and disease.

In 1770, Barnard Gratz of Philadelphia wrote to a friend complaining about a recent speech by King George III. Gratz, an American patriot, wrote that the speech “was such narishkeit” that it was “not worth the postage.”

Billions of years of evolution have made modern cells incredibly complex. Inside cells are small compartments called organelles that perform specific functions essential for the cell’s survival and operation. For instance, the nucleus stores genetic material, and mitochondria produce energy.

Microsoft acquired Blizzard in 2022 for $68.7bn, making it the largest acquition in the history of the video games industry. A new book dives into the company before that record-breaking deal, writes Graig Graziosi

Political operatives on the far right have long spoken about their ambition to shift the “Overton window”. The aim is to “mainstream” ideas long considered unthinkable, through gradual, step-by-step radicalisation and repetition – especially on hot-button issues such as immigration, sexuality, race and identity.

The UK government has announced that it will transfer sovereignty of a remote cluster of islands in the Indian Ocean to Mauritius. The final treaty outlining the transfer of the Chagos Islands, where there is a significant US military base, is expected to be announced in the coming months.

Twenty years ago, the television show “The O.C.” invented the word “Chrismukkah.” Main character Seth Cohen, played by Adam Brody, described his interfaith family’s December tradition of “eight days of presents followed by one day of lots of presents.”

Across the United States, the second Monday of October is increasingly becoming known as Indigenous Peoples Day. In the push to rename Columbus Day, Christopher Columbus himself has become a metaphor for the evils of early colonial empires, and rightly so.

Out of 225 people awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, only five have been women. This is a very small number, and certainly smaller than 50% – the percent of women in the human population.