Indice dei contenuti per March 14, 2016 in TIME Magazine

THE RISE OF DRIVERLESS CARS Even readers who love to drive expressed appreciation for Matt Vella's March 7 cover story on the coming age of self-driving autos, calling the piece timely, if bittersweet. Rick Ferrell of Centreville, Md., a former race-car driver who was also once hit by a car, would miss handling his "beloved '97 BMW Z3 roadster," he wrote, but called the safety gained by going driverless "a step in the right direction." But many others weren't quite ready to trust the new technology. "If auto manufacturers cannot make the relatively simple electronics of today's cars work reliably, how can they drive with them?" asked Robert Tugwell of Belton, S.C. And Mark Johnson, co-owner of an auto-repair shop in Fort Collins, Colo., warned that such cars "will only…

LAND-USE CHANGES Pollinators thrive in diverse habitats with a mix of native vegetation. But converting land for agriculture often destroys that biodiversity, reducing pollinator health. DISEASE AND PARASITES Bees in particular have been victimized by a range of microscopic threats, which can weaken them--and leave them more vulnerable to other dangers. PESTICIDE USE Pesticides like neonicotinoids can kill not only the insects that destroy harvests but also some of the bees, bats and other bugs that help crops reproduce. CLIMATE CHANGE Rising global temperatures shift the range of habitats where bees and other pollinators can survive. Scientists fear current trends could worsen as the world warms.…

On March 2, Emirates' new flight from Dubai to Auckland--which lasted 17 hr. 15 min.--officially became the world's longest nonstop scheduled commercial route. Here, the runners-up (ranked by estimated time from gate to gate): Dallas/Fort Worth Hong Kong Time: 17:05 Distance: 8,108 nautical miles Carrier: American Airlines Johannesburg Atlanta Time: 16:57 Distance: 8,434 nautical miles Carrier: Delta Dallas/Fort Worth Sydney Time: 16:55 Distance: 8,576 nautical miles Carrier: Qantas Dubai Houston Time: 16:45 Distance: 8,151 nautical miles Carrier: Emirates Abu Dhabi Dallas/Fort Worth Time: 16:45 Distance: 8,056 nautical miles Carrier: Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Los Angeles Time: 16:40 Distance: 8,375 nautical miles Carrier: Etihad Airways --Alex Fitzpatrick…

In 1975, the social scientist Robert Weiss dubbed loneliness a disease "wholly without redeeming features." To some extent, this is true. Any lack of intimacy, closeness and connection is painful, and it can take its toll on the human body--driving up blood pressure, accelerating aging, weakening the immune system and even acting as a precursor to cognitive decline, according to research from the University of Chicago. An evolutionary psychologist would explain these effects by arguing that we are social animals who suffer when deprived of contact. But there's another, more pervasive factor at play: shame. In a romance-fixated culture, loneliness means failure, and this social stigma in itself drives isolation. But loneliness is a lot more common--and useful--than people think. Current studies suggest that more than a quarter of American…

Tallying up sick days isn't the only way to tell how someone at work is faring. A recent analysis of American workers found that despite the rise of corporate wellness programs, disengagement at the office costs the U.S. $550 billion each year, and work-related stress tacks on an additional $300 billion. But new studies are turning up surprising strategies that improve both well-being and productivity. For starters, people are happier and more engaged when they accept that work is the pits sometimes, a recent study suggests. Another tack: find ways to detach. "If your goal is feeling better, you need to get your head out of work," says Reb Rebele, a researcher with Wharton People Analytics at the University of Pennsylvania. Experts recommend these evidence-based tricks for reducing stress on…

'The babies being born in America today are the luckiest crop in history.' Warren Buffett, billionaire investor, writing in his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that the U.S. economy is in far better shape than the candidates for President warn 'This feels great.' Scott Kelly, American astronaut, upon landing back on Earth after he spent almost a year in space 1,484 Miles away from home that a Wisconsin cat was found in Florida 947,000 The decline in Japan's population from 2010 to 2015, the latest sign of the country's aging crisis 'I'm here at the Academy Awards, otherwise known as the White People's Choice Awards.' Chris Rock, comedian and host of the Oscars, opening his monologue by directly addressing the controversy over the lack of diversity among the Oscar…

DIED • Aubrey McClendon, 56, ex--Chesapeake CEO, in a car wreck, one day after being indicted for conspiring to rig energy lease bids. • George Kennedy, 91, star of the Airport movies, who won the 1967 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Cool Hand Luke. • Louise Rennison, 63, author best known for her young-adult novel Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging. ELECTED As the new president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino. Infantino, 45, succeeds the disgraced Sepp Blatter as head of soccer's powerful international governing body, which has been rocked by corruption scandals. VETOED By Dennis Daugaard, Republican governor of South Dakota, a bill that would have made the state the first in the country to restrict bathroom access for transgender public-school students.…

From Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump, top presidential candidates are grappling with how to eliminate the gap between what men and women earn in the workplace. Just how wide is that chasm? According to an analysis by TIME, women earn less than men at every age range: 15% less at ages 22 to 25 and a staggering 38% less at ages 51 to 64. What secondary-school teachers earn can help tell this story. From ages 22 to 25, women earn 10% more than their male colleagues. By the time those teachers turn 30, there is no statistical difference between them and their male peers. By 35, the men make more. It's a pattern evident throughout other female-dominated professions from nursing to social work. In male-dominated professions like engineering and finance,…

Every year, an untold number of species either die off or become endangered. This is mostly thanks to a mix of human-led factors that scientists call HIPPO--habitat destruction, invasive species, pollution, population growth and overhunting--and it may well have dire consequences for our species and our world at large. To buck this trend, Pulitzer Prize winner Edward O. Wilson suggests humans take a drastic measure: devote fully half of the earth's surface to nature reserves. This wouldn't mean abandoning entire continents, but it could mean asking people to consider selling or trading their land to create reserves large enough to support rich ecosystems. "As reserves grow in size," he explains, "the diversity of life surviving in them also grows." Of course, Wilson acknowledges, there are commendable conservation efforts already under…

TIME for Kids and KidsHealth.org recently surveyed hundreds of parents and more than 8,000 children ages 8 to 14 about the time they spend with each other. Here's some of what they found: 67% Percentage of kids who say they get along very well or pretty well with their moms and dads, while 66% of parents say the same about their kids. 58% Percentage of kids ages 12 to 14 who say they think their parents are proud of them--well below the 78% of parents who say they are proud of their kids. 85% Percentage of kids who say they have fun with their parents, which jibes with the 84% of parents who say they have fun with their kids. 26% Percentage of kids ages 8 to 11 who say…

In the annals of congressional testimony, very few people have delivered a performance like the one Donald J. Trump gave more than 20 years ago. On Oct. 5, 1993, Trump showed up at an obscure subcommittee hearing on Indian gaming regulation. The Mashantucket Pequot, a tribe of about 300, had just opened one of the nation's largest casinos in the woodlands of southeastern Connecticut, siphoning customers away from Trump's Atlantic City, N.J., casinos. Trump wanted to warn the nation's lawmakers about why his competitors threatened them too. Setting aside what he called his "politically correct" prepared remarks, Trump told the room that the Pequot were not real Native Americans. "They don't look like Indians to me," he said. "They don't look like Indians to Indians." He also took a contradictory…

Terrence Malick is adored in certain film circles for his supposedly poetic imagery, as applied to grand themes like "What is family?" (The Tree of Life) and "Corn: Isn't it great?" (The New World). In Knight of Cups, he turns his somber gaze toward the hollowness of Hollywood: Christian Bale plays a disillusioned screenwriter drifting through a decadent landscape of women wearing too much eye makeup and terrible, clubfooted platform stilettos, though Malick makes it clear that the other female caricatures in his life (Cate Blanchett's selfless doctor, Natalie Portman's caring, sensitive sprite) are far superior. Teresa Palmer also appears as a stripper with a heart of gold and hot pants of silver. (Inexplicably, she also wears sandals with thick wooden soles onstage, moviedom's first clog-wearing exotic dancer.) For loyal…

Although I am equipped with all the other emotions, including the ones with long German names, I don't get angry. When something goes wrong, I skip blame and resentment and go straight to hating myself. This is great for marriage, parenting and looking at health-insurance statements. But it no longer works for being a columnist. My ironic, Gen X, turn-something-into-nothing distance has lost favor to the Bernie Sanders/Donald Trump/cable-news-channel fury of our times. If I wanted to keep my job, I was going to have to take a class in anger un-management. Unfortunately, anger experts are hard to reach, because of the fact that I am scared to call them. Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen and Sean Penn, I worried, would get mad at me for asking them about this. Also,…

Your new album, Full Circle, includes songs from your childhood that you never recorded. Why revisit them now? I was always busy writing new songs and recording them, but I never got back to the songs I did when I was a little girl that Mommy had taught me. I got to thinking when I started recording, Hey, I'm doing this on my own, I'll cut what I want to. I got 93 songs cut. A lot of them are the old stuff. Some of them are new. Ninety-three songs? The record label don't care how many songs I sing, 'cause they'll pick from them what they want me to come out with. They've already got the next album picked. You duet with Willie Nelson on "Lay Me Down." Has…

Bernie Sanders greeted his Super Tuesday defeat with trademark defiance. Though he had been clobbered by Hillary Clinton, losing seven of 11 states, the prize had not dimmed. "This campaign is not just about electing a President," he told a crowd in Essex Junction, Vt. "It is about making a political revolution!" Then he left for his home in Burlington, where he stoked the fire in the wood-burning stove and watched his grandkids play on the couch. Sanders' bid for the White House will almost certainly end at the Democratic Convention in July. But it is increasingly apparent that he has, in fact, sparked a populist revolt that will endure well beyond the primaries. There is real anger on the left about income inequality and Wall Street's influence, and it…

President Obama has made his share of foreign policy mistakes, particularly in the Middle East. But it's ironic that Republican critics now hammer him hardest over his nuclear deal with Iran, a bet that has already paid out for those who want to undermine Iran's hard-liners. Elections for Iran's parliament and its Assembly of Experts--which picks the nation's Supreme Leader--were hardly free and fair. Conservatives managed to block the candidacy of almost every well-known pragmatist and reformer--yet the few who were allowed to run made stunning gains in both elections. It's the Iranian people, not Obama, who produced this outcome. But without the nuclear deal that Obama pushed for--and the sanctions relief and economic surge it's about to deliver in Iran--it's unlikely that voters would have cast ballots to endorse…

Global businesses wouldn't think of ignoring China. Nearly all of the Fortune 500 companies have a presence there. Flooding into new markets makes sense, especially one with 1.4 billion people. So why aren't more businesses targeting people age 50-plus? This is a global market nearly the size of China, and it is entirely new in the sense that people this age have never before had so much spending power, staying power and ambition. "The problem is a total absence of imagination," says Joseph Coughlin, director of the MIT AgeLab, which studies longevity. "Marketers still present these years as filled with golf, cruises and a rocking chair." That model of later life may be dated, but it's a struggle to fully understand what is replacing it. Here's the way experts on…

In the past year, the African-American community has sent the nation a powerful message about how to react to violence--and the difference between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders can be found in how each received that message. Clinton's response is especially important because it is different from the way she reacts to most things. It is emotional rather than policy-oriented. It is about suffering more than grievance. It floats on the deep rivers of pain and forgiveness in the black community. In her South Carolina victory speech--one of her best this year--she cited an African Methodist Episcopal reverend who had asked, "'How, how are we ever going to strengthen the bonds of family and community again?' Well, we're going to start by working together with more love and kindness in…

LOVE IT Kate McKinnon brought her Ellen DeGeneres impersonation to Ellen. Kanye West name-checked TIME in a new song reportedly titled "Closest Thing to Einstein": 'I know I'm the most influential/That TIME cover was just confirmation.' At one point on the Oscars stage, Room star Jacob Tremblay shouted to host Chris Rock, "I loved you in Madagascar!" After a brief closure for renovations to meet the high demand for its now famous rainbow bagels, Brooklyn's Bagel Store is officially back open for business. A 106-year-old woman was so excited about her first visit to the White House (to celebrate Black History Month) that she started dancing when she met the Obamas. Time's weekly take on what popped in culture LEAVE IT A woman in Washington State found a purple pearl…