The gist: McDonald's is increasingly using artificial intelligence to recommend menu prices across its nearly 14,000 U.S. restaurants, and in some international markets.

Its pricing engine analyzes millions of transactions every day and generates what McDonald's calls the “optimal price” for individual menu items at individual restaurants. Among the inputs are local competitor prices and estimates of how much customers in that area are willing to pay.

The result is increasingly localized pricing, with the same order sometimes costing noticeably different amounts just a few miles apart. Reuters found one company-run McDonald's in Fresno selling a Big Mac for $5.69 while another company-run location two miles away charged $6.89. Reuters could not establish whether the AI system caused that particular difference. McDonald's says the pricing tool provides recommendations rather than mandates and that franchisees remain free to set their final prices.

Why it matters: Algorithms already help decide what we watch, buy and see online. Increasingly, they're moving behind the price tag too. McDonald's isn't alone in experimenting with algorithmic pricing, raising a bigger question: how comfortable will consumers be with software helping determine what something should cost in a particular place?

Go deeper: Reuters: Inside McDonald's push to have AI price your Big Mac

The gist: Revolve built its identity around online shopping, influencers and social media. Now it's trying something decidedly less digital: a print magazine.

The fashion retailer launched REVOLVE Magazine on September 29 as an annual print and digital publication, with three debut covers featuring Kendall Jenner, Teyana Taylor and Alex Consani. Inside are fashion and beauty stories, profiles, travel, cultural coverage, product recommendations and even a curated Los Angeles guide.

The reasoning is almost more interesting than the magazine itself. In an increasingly short-form, digital world, Revolve says the magazine gives it a new canvas for deeper storytelling, curated recommendations and the people and experiences shaping what's next. The magazine will be available digitally and in stores and is planned as an annual publication.

Why it matters: One of the brands that helped turn fashion discovery into an online, influencer-driven experience now sees value in slowing it back down. It doesn't prove that print is suddenly taking over again, but it is an interesting bet that physical media can feel more special precisely because so much of what we consume now disappears with the next scroll.

Go deeper: REVOLVE Magazine launch announcement

The gist: Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, has a global ocean hidden beneath an icy crust. Conveniently for scientists, material from that ocean erupts through cracks near its south pole and gets blasted into space as tiny ice particles.

When NASA's Cassini spacecraft analyzed those particles, scientists found something puzzling: individual grains could contain very different concentrations of salts even though they originated from the same ocean. A newly published Science Advances study suggests the freezing process itself may explain why.

Researchers found that ocean droplets may freeze slowly as they travel through cracks in the moon's ice. As they freeze, salts and organic compounds can separate into different parts of a droplet. The frozen droplet can then fragment, creating tiny ice grains in which particular substances are highly concentrated.

In other words, Enceladus may be naturally separating and concentrating its own ocean samples before throwing them into space.

Why it matters: Scientists don't necessarily need direct access to Enceladus's buried ocean to study what's inside it. The moon is already ejecting samples into space, and this research suggests some of those grains may contain highly concentrated chemicals that are easier for spacecraft to detect. That could make the search for potential biosignatures easier, although importantly, scientists have not found life on Enceladus.

Go deeper: Freie Universität Berlin: Great News from Saturn's Moon Enceladus in the Search for Life in Space

Phatic FAT-ik | adjective

Definition: Language used primarily to create or maintain social connection rather than to exchange information.

Think: “How's it going?” “Crazy weather today.” “How was your weekend?”

The actual information being exchanged isn't really the point. The interaction itself is.

In a sentence: The conversation started with a little phatic small talk before moving on to anything interesting.

Why it's worth knowing: Small talk gets a bad reputation for being meaningless, but sometimes meaning isn't the goal. A throwaway comment about the weather can simply be the doorway into an actual conversation.

When you don't know what to say next, don't immediately search for a new topic.

Take the last interesting thing the other person said and hand it back to them.

“I ended up living in Tokyo for two years.”

“Two years in Tokyo?”

“I almost didn't take this job.”

“You almost didn't take it?”

It's a tiny conversational trick: repeat or rephrase the part that caught your attention and let them decide where to take it next.

You're not firing another unrelated question at them. You're showing them exactly what made you curious.

COPY AND PASTE:

I'm going to [describe the event] where I'll be meeting [describe the people]. Here's what I already know about them or the situation: [details].

Give me 10 natural conversation starters based on this context. Make them curious and specific without sounding like networking questions. Avoid yes-or-no questions, clichés like “What do you do?” and anything that sounds overly rehearsed. For each, give me one natural follow-up that would help turn their answer into an actual conversation.

One thing you didn’t know you wanted to know.

You leave a conversation with someone new and immediately begin the post-game analysis.

Why did I say that? Did I talk too much? Did they even like me?

Psychologists have a name for what may be happening: the liking gap.

In a series of studies published in Psychological Science, researchers found that after conversations, people tended to underestimate how much their conversation partner liked them and enjoyed their company. The effect appeared across different kinds and lengths of conversations, and researchers even observed it as college students developed relationships with new dormmates over time.

One possible reason is wonderfully human: while you're busy noticing everything you think you did wrong, you may be missing the signals that the other person actually enjoyed talking to you. Researchers have suggested that we're simply more critical of our own conversational performance.

So that conversation you're replaying in your head?

There's a decent chance you're the harshest person reviewing it.

Go deeper → The Liking Gap in Conversations — Association for Psychological Science