colleagues

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Businesses often invest significant time and money to onboard new hires at work and help them adjust to their new environment, but it remains largely unclear how team insiders navigate the same period of adjustment with their new co-workers, especially those who may be different from them. …

By Elvia LimónHello, it’s Monday, Oct. 10, and here are the stories you shouldn’t miss today:TOP STORIES L.A. council members make racist remarks, mock colleaguesThree Latino members of the Los Angeles City Council and a top county labor official held a conversation last fall that included racist remarks, derisive statements about their colleagues and council President Nury Martinez saying a white councilman handled his young Black son as though he were an “accessory,” according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by…

Humans take a lot of pride in their brains. We like to think we are an intelligent species, and even though size isn't everything, our noggins are some of the largest nature has to offer.  The idea that our brains are shrinking is not one we like to consider. For more than four decades, experts have mostly ignored the hypothesis put forward time and time again by a close-knit group of paleontologists.Now, the brain shrinkage hypothesis is being put to the test once more, with a team from the University of Nevada, Las…

It didn’t take long for Gary Bush to become reacquainted with the harsh realities of office life after two years of working out of his home in Fort Wayne, Ind. Within a matter of days, the sales manager for an auto dealership found himself having to break up a spat between two employees over a large container of apple juice. One said she brought it in and left it in the office refrigerator to drink later that day. The other conceded to consuming most of it, but argued that he wasn’t at fault because it wasn’t labeled as…

The link between air pollution and autoimmune diseases just got a little clearer thanks to a massive study that dove into the health records of over 6 million Canadians.  Led by public health researcher Naizhuo Zhao of McGill University, the study found that long-term exposure to air pollutants was associated with a slightly increased risk of developing lupus, Sjogren's syndrome, scleroderma, and other less common systemic autoimmune diseases.  These conditions, each affecting roughly 1 in 10,000 people, often get…

With researchers warning that limiting global warming to 1.5 °C is fast slipping from our grasp, we know it will take a mammoth effort to reach. But the scale of emissions reductions required is actually something we have already achieved before – quite recently and rather by accident.  In 2020, global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 6.3 percent or some 2,200 metric tons (MtCO2), a new study in Nature Geoscience reports. That reduction "is the largest absolute annual decline in emissions, larger than the emissions…

Image: Getty Images/iStockphotoWhen it comes to remote working, employees say they can be relied upon to get the job done – but don't necessarily say the same about their colleagues.A report by Cisco on the impact of hybrid working found that workers view themselves as more dependable than their co-workers in being productive while working from home.In a survey of 1,050 UK employees, 75% of respondents said their manager trusted them to be productive while working remotely, yet a lower proportion (61%) felt their…

The sprawling ruins of Amazonian settlements once home to an Indigenous agriculturalist society with a penchant for cosmology have been uncovered in the Bolivian jungle, hidden beneath seemingly impenetrable vegetation.  The 26 sites, roughly half of which were previously unknown to archaeologists, are yet another example of how the Amazon region was home to large, longstanding settlements and complex ancient societies before the Spanish invasion decimated the Americas."Our results put to rest arguments that western…

A flexible contact lens that senses eye pressure and releases a drug on-demand could help treat glaucoma, the second leading global cause of blindness worldwide.The compact wireless device, which has been developed by a team of Chinese researchers and tested in pig and rabbit eyes so far, appears to detect and reduce rising eye pressure, one of the usual causes of glaucoma.  Glaucoma is an umbrella term for a group of eye diseases where damage to the optic nerve, which relays visual information to the brain, causes…

Inflammation is a core component of pain. But early inflammatory responses may protect against acute pain becoming chronic, according to an intriguing study of nearly 100 patients with low back pain.  At first glance, the study, which also included mouse models of persistent pain and a population-level analysis of painkiller use, seemingly goes against mounds of evidence indicating that inflammation drives widespread chronic pain.But its focus is on acute inflammation – the first wave of immune cells led by neutrophils,…