Team management real madrid

Tech & Science Environmental Health Your skin is teeming with microbes. Millions of them. From the perspective of these tiny organisms, the surface of your body is their living, breathing habitat. This living layer is part of what's called the human microbiome—the collective genomes of all the "foreign" microorganisms that live in the human body—and research on it has exploded in recent years. But within microbiome research is a brand-new field that is just beginning to understand a stunning fact: Your microbiome extends beyond yourself, into the air around you. It hovers in a cloud around your body and leaves bits of itself on surfaces wherever you go. In short, you have an aura, except it isn't made of purplish light; it's your personal cloud of dead skin cells, fungus and many, many microbes. And researchers are learning to be able to identify you by it. "You know the dirty kid from Peanuts? Pig-Pen? It turns out we all look like that," says James Meadow, a data … [Read more...] about Auras Are Real, and Yours Looks Like Pig-Pen’s

Oscar Health was going to be a new kind of insurance company. Started in 2012, just in time to offer plans to people buying insurance under the new federal health care law, the business promised to use technology to push less costly care and more consumer-friendly coverage. “We’re trying to build something that’s going to turn the industry on its head,” Joshua Kushner, one of the company’s founders, said in 2014, as Oscar began to enroll its first customers. These days, though, Oscar is more of a case study in how brutally tough it is to keep a business above water in the state marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act. And its struggles highlight a critical question about the act: Can insurance companies run a viable business in the individual market? Oscar has attracted 135,000 customers, about half of them in New York State. And some of its efforts with technology have been successful. But for every dollar of premium Oscar collects in New York, the company is losing … [Read more...] about Health Insurer Hoped to Disrupt the Industry, but Struggles in State Marketplaces

Sports Video games NBA Gamers The cramped room in Midtown Manhattan was packed wall-to-wall with YouTubers—a relentlessly cheery bunch—the lot of them excitedly live-streaming, likes and comments bobbing across their screens. It was August, and the crowd was previewing the latest product from the NBA 2K video game series—NBA 2K18, which was released Friday to those who pre-ordered—and the event was crowded with elite gamers, social media stars, 2K staffers and, pocked about the room, honest-to-God, in-the-flesh NBA players. Security stood at the front door. Booze flowed from a bar in the back. TVs pinstriped the length of the room, cutting it into even rows. That was the main attraction, with the gamers lining up, jostling through the morass of people to get their turn on the joysticks (all of this, of course, beamed over the internet to 2K devotees). In a room full of presumed NBA fans it was somewhat disorienting to see these NBA players—Brooklyn Nets guard … [Read more...] about Virtual Meets Reality: Inside NBA 2K and Pro Basketball

On the morning of Oct. 5, President Bush and his education secretary, Margaret Spellings, paid a visit, along with camera crews from CNN and Fox News, to Friendship-Woodridge Elementary and Middle Campus, a charter public school in Washington. The president dropped in on two classrooms, where he asked the students, almost all of whom were African-American and poor, if they were planning to go to college. Every hand went up. “See, that’s a good sign,” the president told the students when they assembled later in the gym. “Going to college is an important goal for the future of the United States of America.” He singled out one student, a black eighth grader named Asia Goode, who came to Woodridge four years earlier reading “well below grade level.” But things had changed for Asia, according to the president. “Her teachers stayed after school to tutor her, and she caught up,” he said. “Asia is now an honors student. She loves reading, and she sings in the school choir.” Bush’s Woodridge … [Read more...] about What It Takes to Make a Student

Along the riverbanks of Eastern Kentucky, the redbud trees are just starting to bloom, their branches still lumbering under the weight of last summer’s catastrophic flood: Lawn chairs, trampolines, twisted gutters and school backpacks remain high in the treetops, each item a persistent and disorienting sign of how life here was turned upside down last July when shallow streams surged more than 18 feet in 10 hours in parts of the state, killing more than 40 people and leaving hundreds homeless . Yet while residents reach for the possibility of renewal, the largest regional investment being offered is a federal prison proposed for Letcher County, the heart of the flood zone. The possible federal correctional institution adds insult to an already injured region. In 2019 activists defeated the proposal, demanding that the funds be used for more forward-thinking purposes, including safe and affordable housing — all the more needed since the flood. The Trump and Biden … [Read more...] about Eastern Kentucky Needs Flood Relief, Not Another Federal Prison

“I feel like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Who are these guys that just keep coming?” — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr. It was the weekend of Sept. 13, and the moment Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had feared for months was finally upon him: Lehman Brothers was hurtling toward bankruptcy — fast. Knowing that Lehman had billions of dollars in bad investments on its books, Mr. Paulson had long urged Lehman’s chief executive, Richard S. Fuld Jr., to find a solution for his firm’s problems. “He was asked to aggressively look for a buyer,” Mr. Paulson recalled in an interview. But Lehman could not — despite what Mr. Paulson described as personal pleas to other firms to buy some of Lehman’s toxic assets and efforts to persuade another bank to acquire Lehman. With all options closed, he said, the government’s hands were tied. Although the Federal Reserve had helped bail out Bear Stearns — and was within days of bailing out the giant insurer American … [Read more...] about Struggling to Keep Up as the Crisis Raced On

One of the Republican Party’s most astute pols, Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, recently reflected on his party’s status among voters. In a 20-page memo for his colleagues, Davis wrote, “If we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf.” Bad as things are, they may get worse. The signs of Republican trouble are everywhere. Eighty-one percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, the worst number since The New York Times and CBS started asking the question in 1991. Consumer sentiment in May, as measured by the University of Michigan, was at its lowest level in 28 years. Republicans have lost three consecutive special elections for House seats in rock-ribbed Republican districts, a particularly ominous harbinger of electoral catastrophe. Yet Democratic successes right now are driven more by Republican failures than by an enthusiastic public embrace of what Democrats stand for. The Democratic-controlled Congress, after all, has a lower approval rating … [Read more...] about Back to the Center

Easter and hot cross buns go hand-in-hand, and every year supermarkets get more and more creative when it comes to coming up with weird and wonderful combinations to make this sweet treat even more exciting. From chocolate and orange to banoffee, you're no longer confined to a plain, sultana-filled treat. However, this year one iconic brand is staking it one step further – and people are freaking out. Heinz's team of sauce connoisseurs have come up with a new limited-edition mayo just in time for Easter – Heinz [Seriously] Good Hot Cross Bun Mayo. Combining the classic rich and creamy flavour of Heinz mayonnaise with toasted hot cross buns, swirled with sweet cinnamon spices and speckled with real fruit pieces, there no doubting the new product screams Easter. Heinz fans may remember the company brought out a similar product in 2019, where they combined the flavours of Cadbury Creme Egg with mayonnaise . The mayo has toasted hot cross buns, sweet cinnamon spices … [Read more...] about Heinz launches hot cross bun mayonnaise and people are branding it ‘blasphemy’

Season 3, Episode 3: ‘4-5-1’ Welcome to the Zava era. For those who skipped the first two episodes of this third season of “Ted Lasso” — and honestly, shame on you; go back , do the homework and rejoin us — Ted’s team has signed one of the greatest players of the age, a mercurial striker named Zava. (He is based closely on the real-life star Zlatan Ibrahimovic .) This was accomplished by Rebecca rudely accosting him while he was using a urinal last episode . Whatever works, right? Zava is immediately weird — showing up hours late with his cellphone on another continent, ostentatiously meditating while the rest of the team prepares for games, and so on. But so far he seems reasonably friendly, even if his preferred alignment is everyone in the midfield or on defense except him. This is the meaning of the episode’s title, “4-5-1”: He’s the “1.” As the coaches explain, all free kicks will be taken by Zava. All penalty kicks will be taken by Zava. And all corner kicks must be … [Read more...] about ‘Ted Lasso,’ Season 3, Episode 3 Recap: Zava Superstar

How do you thank someone who has passed? Oscar Zamora was a relief pitcher for the Chicago Cubs in the mid-1970s. He wasn’t very good, to put it kindly. During his Wrigley Field tenure, Cubs fans would serenade him as he exited the game, often in mid-inning after having surrendered a blizzard of runs. Here is a sample verse, sung to the tune of the long-ago Dean Martin hit “That’s Amore.” When the pitch is so fat That the ball hits the bat, That’s Zamora! From the press box where I sometimes sat, he seemed to accept the razzing with equanimity, as if he agreed it was deserved. I was a young reporter at the time, and after games, I’d pass him in the clubhouse as he was dressing quietly at his locker, while I sought out one or another of his more prominent teammates. Zamora pitched for the Cubs for parts of three seasons, and I can’t remember ever interviewing him for a story or even stopping to chat. He was one in that category — an interchangeable part, a minor … [Read more...] about Ron Berler: Living with regret and former Cubs pitcher Oscar Zamora’s glove