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Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.
Hint: One of the categories in the New York Times Connections puzzle today involves a kind of ingredient I recently used while making cookies for my annual cookie swap. And another one plays off the puzzle editors’ love for wordplay, as in removing letters from famous words or names and making other words out of them. Need more hints and answers? Read on.
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest, yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Good morning! Let’s play Connections, the NYT’s clever word game that challenges you to group answers in various categories. It can be tough, so read on if you need clues.
What should you do once you’ve finished? Why, play some more word games of course. I’ve also got daily Strands hints and answers and Quordle hints and answers articles if you need help for those too, while Marc’s Wordle today page covers the original viral word game.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about NYT Connections today is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.
NYT Connections today (game #553) – today’s words
(Image credit: New York Times)
Today’s NYT Connections words are…
THUMB
KEY
LEAF
STYLE
MACE
MAR
FLAIL
FLIP
SPEAR
CLOVE
TANK
PEPPER
RIFFLE
FLOUNDER
NUTMEG
FLOP
NYT Connections today (game #553) – hint #1 – group hints
What are some clues for today’s NYT Connections groups?
YELLOW: Seasonings
GREEN: Below par
BLUE: Browsing
PURPLE: Popular vocalists
Need more clues?
We’re firmly in spoiler territory now, but read on if you want to know what the four theme answers are for today’s NYT Connections puzzles…
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NYT Connections today (game #553) – hint #2 – group answers
What are the answers for today’s NYT Connections groups?
YELLOW: SPICES
GREEN: PERFORM POORLY
BLUE: SKIM THROUGH, AS PAGES
PURPLE: POP SINGERS MINUS « S »
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.
NYT Connections today (game #553) – the answers
(Image credit: New York Times)
The answers to today’s Connections, game #553, are…
YELLOW: SPICES CLOVE, MACE, NUTMEG, PEPPER
GREEN: PERFORM POORLY FLAIL, FLOP, FLOUNDER, TANK
BLUE: SKIM THROUGH, AS PAGES FLIP, LEAF, RIFFLE, THUMB
PURPLE: POP SINGERS MINUS « S » KEY, MAR, SPEAR, STYLE
My rating: Easy
My score: Perfect
As someone who is known to PERFORM BADLY at Connections, it’s no surprise that I landed on the Green group first today – although I did momentarily think the connection was “Things you do when drunk”.
POP SINGERS MINUS “S” was a good one, especially as SPEAR could have been a weapon along with RIFLE and MACE.
I’m off to listen to Empire State of Mind.
Yesterday’s NYT Connections answers (Saturday, 14 December, game #552)
YELLOW: FISH FLUKE, MULLET, SOLE, TANG
GREEN: WORDS IN AN AUCTION-ENDING PHRASE GOING, ONCE, SOLD, TWICE
BLUE: GLOBAL CURRENCIES POUND, REAL, SOL, YUAN
PURPLE: WORDS BEFORE « CUP » BUTTER, DIVA, SOLO, WORLD
What is NYT Connections?
NYT Connections is one of several increasingly popular word games made by the New York Times. It challenges you to find groups of four items that share something in common, and each group has a different difficulty level: green is easy, yellow a little harder, blue often quite tough and purple usually very difficult.
On the plus side, you don’t technically need to solve the final one, as you’ll be able to answer that one by a process of elimination. What’s more, you can make up to four mistakes, which gives you a little bit of breathing room.
It’s a little more involved than something like Wordle, however, and there are plenty of opportunities for the game to trip you up with tricks. For instance, watch out for homophones and other word games that could disguise the answers.
It’s playable for free via the NYT Games site on desktop or mobile.
At $700, the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus is one of the best-feeling Chromebooks you can buy this year. However, even with a quality screen, chassis, and feel, it lacks in some key areas. I’ve enjoyed many of the new features introduced to Chromebooks in the last two years. But are these devices now the true AI laptops, thanks to Google’s Gemini? No, of course not.
Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus
It’s a great Chromebook, but it lacks some features that will keep it from being your everything entertainment device.
Pros
Excellent, bright AMOLED Display
Chromebook features like tasks and focus are excellent additions
Plenty of ports
Good performance and adequate battery life
Cons
Thin, tinny audio quality
AI features don’t add too much
60 Hz refresh rate is okay, but below what I want for game streaming
Costly for a Chromebook
I like a good Chromebook as much as anybody, and the Chromebook Plus models have largely been a solid upgrade for what are still ultra-cheap laptops. There are a few places where you can nab a “Plus” laptop for basic browsing, streaming, and potentially more intensive cloud-based tasks for around $350, like the Lenovo Chromebook Duet 11. With its enterprise-level chassis, this device costs as much as the Asus ExpertBook CX54 Chromebook Plus. Samsung’s device is also the first Chromebook to use the new Quick Access Key (right where you find your Caps Lock button). The quick access to Gemini AI certainly isn’t worth the extra cost, so what is?
What the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus has going for it is a great feel, from the chassis to the I/O port selection down to the spacious keyboard. It’s so thin; one PR rep for Google was happy to show how the new Galaxy Chromebook Plus was as thick as two graded Pokémon cards. It’s a very specific metric, to be sure, but at 11.8 mm thin, there’s no bag or crack in the wall it won’t fit into.
It has a solid battery life that lasts a little more than 10 hours after periodic use. The Samsung-brand Chromebook also packs a quality near-16-inch AMOLED display that feels luxuriously wide. That, plus the keyboard with full numpad and HDMI port with a solid selection of I/O, makes it a great all-rounder. It also comes with 256GB of storage for your content outside the cloud, more than you normally get elsewhere. Performance on the Intel Core 3 chip is where you need it to be with such a common Chromebook CPU. At the same time, it has a minimum of 8GB of RAM to qualify for Chromebook Plus status.
However, without a touchscreen or any other noticeable features, save for the thin chassis, there’s not much about this Chromebook that excites me to recommend it for $700. You can’t get much better if you want a solid Chromebook and don’t care about cost.
Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus Review: Build Quality and Usability
The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus sits in a .47-inch tall body and weighs 2.58 pounds. Yes, it’s light, damn light, but better than that, it still feels solid. The chassis does have some bend toward the center (not nearly as bad as the Acer Swift 16 AI), especially around the palm rest. Otherwise, the laptop feels premium, and you have the extra benefit of the pleasing deep blue color for the cover. The only issue is that the device tends to shine with your greasy fingers and palms, requiring regular wiping. There’s also the extra benefit of plenty of I/O ports, including two USB-C, a USB type A, HDMI, and a micro-SD card slot.
The keyboard and trackpad feel just about right. The thin keys aren’t too stiff, though they still have a clacky feeling without being squishy. The clickpad-type trackpad has a smooth texture, although not as fine as a glass surface. I only had a few instances of palm rejection issues, but not enough to be concerning for long-term use. Overall, it’s just very standard, especially since you don’t get a touchscreen on this model.
After that, it’s all down to the ChromeOS software. Easily, my favorite part of the latest updates is the Welcome Recap. It loads every time you restart your Chromebook, allowing you to see what you were most recently working on, alongside little widgets for your Calendar, Weather, and Docs. As for the Quick Insert key, I only used it to text emojis or for quick access to GIFs to send to coworkers in Slack. That’s plenty useful for the memelords, but not much else.
After using it for a week, I loved the new Focus features. You can set it to time out your focus tasks, reducing pop-ups and other distractions. You can enable it with YouTube Music, but there’s a small selection of “Focus Sounds” to listen to instead. There are tracks to emulate a thunderstorm, with rain pattering on an invisible roof, or you could choose the “classical” track to serenade yourself with soft strings and brass as you work. I only wish you had more control over every playlist and that there were more to choose from. Google also integrated Google Tasks directly into the taskbar above the calendar function. It’s simple but effective, especially if you’re the type that needs a reminder every few hours about what it was you were supposed to be doing.
The sound quality is impressive, particularly when using headphones. The display is excellent, but the slim design does not support its role as a complete all-in-one entertainment device.
Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus Review: Display and Sound
One of the Galaxy Chromebook’s biggest selling points is its 15.6-inch AMOLED display. It’s a nice size, and the 1080p resolution is good enough for streaming YouTube or Netflix. The screen was also plenty bright for my use, so I first relied on it to slip into my apartment’s living area, where it gets the most sun.
Yes, it looks great, but its panel has a refresh rate of only 60Hz. That’s fine for streaming video content, but what if I wanted to load up Game Pass or Geforce Now for some game streaming on this bright, beautiful screen? At this price point, I’d want a 120Hz panel like the Acer Chromebook 516 GE.
Unfortunately, the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus doesn’t sound as good as it looks. It can get loud, but it’s still very tinny, which is certainly not the quality you want to watch your favorite movies while huddled on the bed with your significant other.
Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus Review: Performance and Battery Life
The laptop uses an Intel Core 3 100U Raptor Lake processor released in January, before all the hubbub around the Qualcomm Snapdragon, AMD Strix Point, and Intel Lunar Lake for thin PCs. It’s an entry-level chip, but it’s good at that level. However, it doesn’t have the battery life of these most recent $1,000-plus laptops.
The fan couldn’t be called loud, but I was surprised to hear it whirring as the device handled three separate Chrome windows and an external display. The laptop could also get relatively warm under stress, but you would only feel it if you held it from the bottom. I never noticed any instances where the heat impacted performance.
The Galaxy Chromebook Plus also has 8GB of RAM, more than you normally get with a Chromebook Plus model. Because of this, the Chromebook was speedy for most tasks, but running it with all those windows and too many open tabs caused me to experience some cursor slowdowns and occasional hitching.
Battery life used to be one of the defining benefits of Chromebooks, but other small Windows PCs have since eclipsed them. Samsung promises 13 hours of battery life, though that was based on the Chromebook power load test. I found I could get between six and seven hours before I needed to recharge. It’s not bad, and I used it with too many open tabs, as I usually do. It just won’t be a multi-day laptop.
Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus Review: AI Additions
New Chromebook Plus models are supposed to sport the Quick Access key landing on the Caps Lock space where the old “G” key used to be (don’t worry, the Launcher button has new space next to the left Alt key). The Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus is the first of its kind to get this addition. This has a few benefits. It lets you access files you last had open and see a potential URL link you could add to some text. However, its main raison d’etre is to give you immediate access to AI writing capabilities.
However, I have serious doubts about whether anyone should use this for anything beyond outlining or brainstorming. I asked Google’s Gemini to write a paragraph explaining the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus specs just to prove a point. Gemini spat out several options for a paragraph and provided inaccuracies about the display, CPU, size, and more. It will confidently lie about things it does not have the correct information about, and that’s a problem.
Even the proofread function is less helpful than it should be. It doesn’t tell you what parts of a highlighted paragraph will change. This is all with a Gemini Advanced subscription, which is Google’s most-capable LLM available to Chromebook users from the desktop.
And, of course, there’s Gemini Advanced. All new Chromebook Plus buyers get 12 months free of Google’s more advanced chatbot, plus 2TB of cloud storage. Gemini Advanced comes with a few “Gems” like coding partners; depending on the user, it could prove useful. Based on Google’s suggestion, I asked the “Brainstormer” Gem to help me develop gift ideas for a friend who likes Baldur’s Gate III. To be succinct, it’s gift ideas absolutely sucked. Its best idea was to give a gift card or a shirt to a local game shop.
Don’t buy this or any other new Chromebook because of its AI capabilities. That said, if you use on-device voice recorders, you’ll find the new AI-generated transcriptions and summaries on the ChromeOS Recorder App, which aren’t too bad.
Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus Review: Verdict
The more I used the Samsung Galaxy Chromebook Plus, the more I endeared myself to it. It’s the Chromebook I could see someone replacing their laptop with. It has enough ports and a solid display, but without all the little extras, like a higher refresh rate and better speakers, I would inevitably feel like I’m missing something. I would want a Chromebook without compromise for the price you’re paying.
Microsoft has cut two of Skype’s central premium features: credit and custom phone numbers. Instead of credits, the company is now pushing subscriptions — priced regionally and globally, depending on your needs. As for using a phone number other than your cell’s, there’s no longer an alternative on the platform.
The first wind of the change came from a volunteer moderator replying in Microsoft’s Skype forums to a user who wanted to know why they couldn’t buy new credits. “We have just received new information from Microsoft,” said Skype moderator Ruwim. B, who rocked a sweet Yoda profile pic. “Skype has stopped purchase of Skype Credit for all users. The only option available now are monthly calling subscriptions.”
When another user chimed in to ask for confirmation that this meant there was no way on the entire platform to send SMS messages once you’re out of credits, the moderator wrote, “Unless they decide to add an ongoing SMS texting subscription, you will no longer be able to send outbound SMS texts from Skype.”
Screenshot by Will Shanklin for Engadget
Microsoft confirmed the changes in a statement to TechCrunch, saying the company “continuously evaluate(s) product strategy based on customer usage and needs.” The spokesperson clarified that existing Skype numbers will still work and existing credit can still be used, but once you’re out of credits, that’s it. You can now only buy a subscription instead of credits, and you’ll have to seek out other platforms offering a virtual phone number you can answer over VoIP.
Skype-to-Skype calls have always been free on the platform — and still are. If that’s all you use the service for, nothing should change. When calling out to landlines or supported mobile numbers (with remaining credits or a subscription), you can still use the service’s Caller ID feature, which displays your real cell number to the receiving party. So, axing Skype Number only affects you if you want to call or message non-Skype lines or if you want to display a custom number (like one with an area code local to the country you’re calling) when doing so.
The product sits alongside Google Voice as a service that once seemed primed to take on the new mobile world but instead settled into niche status. As alternatives like Zoom, FaceTime and WhatsApp rose to capture the bulk of the pandemic-era demand for internet calling and messaging, the Microsoft-owned Skype played second fiddle even within the company. Microsoft invested a lot more in promoting its preferred calling platform, Teams.
You may have noticed that Microsoft doesn’t advertise Skype as it did in the first few years after buying the company for $8.5 billion in 2011. It no longer makes a habit of touting Skype’s user base in earnings calls (or anywhere else). As TechCrunch notes, the last mention was in a blog post from last year that said, “More than 36 million people use Skype daily to connect through phone calls and chats across borders and around the world.”
It isn’t clear whether those numbers are still current, and we also don’t know how many relied on the premium features that have gone away. Regardless, we can assume there’s still a healthy chunk of folks around the world relying on the platform’s paid features to at least some degree. Those using anything but free Skype-to-Skype calls are now left to weigh a subscription’s cost or shop around.
Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands and Connections puzzles.
The New York Times Mini Crossword was fun today. It’s one of those no-space grids that I love, because if you get all the Across answers, you don’t even need to attempt the Down answers — they’re all filled in. But if you’re stuck, we’ve got the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.
The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.
Let’s get at those Mini Crossword clues and answers.
The completed NYT Mini Crossword puzzle for Dec. 15, 2024.
NYT/Screenshot by CNET
Mini across clues and answers
1A clue: Halloween costume with a bedsheet Answer: GHOST
6A clue: Role for Leonardo DiCaprio in a ’90s romantic tragedy Answer: ROMEO
7A clue: Thwart, as disaster Answer: AVERT
8A clue: « Switching gears here … » or « On a similar note … » Answer: SEGUE
9A clue: British baby buggies Answer: PRAMS
Mini down clues and answers
1D clue: Wrap one’s mind around Answer: GRASP
2D clue: Float like a hummingbird Answer: HOVER
3D clue: Upscale Swiss watch that shares its name with a Greek letter Answer: OMEGA
4D clue: Truth ___ Answer: SERUM
5D clue: Slangy « For sure! » Answer: TOTES
How to play more Mini Crosswords
The New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day’s Mini Crossword for free, but you’ll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.
AI investments aren’t slowing, despite skepticism and real world dangers
AI is expected to be an integral part of most industries
Tech giants are going nuclear to manage electricity demands
Despite the wide-ranging potential applications of AI technology, concerns remain about its reliability, the legality of training models on copyrighted data without permission, and environmental impact.
In face of this, many investors believe generative AI will become integral to industries such as business analytics, creative services, and automation.
Analysts predict 60% of current skeptics will embrace generative AI within the next few years, knowingly or not, and investors are not slowing down as they continue to throw their hat in the ring.
The rapid expansion of Generative AI
New figures from PitchBook hae claimed investment in generative AI startups remains robust, with venture capitalists pouring $3.9 billion across 206 deals in the third quarter of 2024. US-based companies attracted the lion’s share, raising $2.9 billion across 127 deals and this does not include OpenAI’s notable $6.6 billion round.
Some standout funding rounds include Magic, a coding assistant startup that secured $320 million in August, and Glean, an enterprise search company, which raised $260 million in September.
Meanwhile, Hebbia, a business analytics firm, drew $130 million in July. Furthermore, investments extended beyond the U.S., with China’s Moonshot AI raising $300 million and Japan’s Sakana AI closing a $214 million round focused on scientific discovery.
Unfortunately, the rapid expansion of generative AI also brings challenges, particularly regarding energy consumption. According to Bain & Company, companies deploying AI at scale will require gigawatt-scale data centers, which consume up to 20 times the power of typical data centers today. This demand risks straining global electricity and labour markets.
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The reliance on data centers has already prolonged the use of coal-fired power plants, with Morgan Stanley warning greenhouse gas emissions could triple by 2030 if the trend continues unchecked.
In response, major data center operators like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google are turning to nuclear energy to offset their environmental impact. Microsoft, for instance, announced plans to source power from the controversial Three Mile Island nuclear facility, though such projects could take years to become operational.
Despite these environmental and technical hurdles, investor interest in generative AI remains high. ElevenLabs, known for its viral voice-cloning tool, is reportedly seeking to raise funds at a $3 billion valuation. Black Forest Labs, the company behind a controversial image generator on the X platform, is also in talks for a $100 million funding round.
The question of whether global warming is accelerating is hotly contested among climate scientists. While some have argued that the current rate of warming — which hit an all-time high last year — is strictly correlated with increased fossil fuel emissions and therefore aligned with current climate models, others have cautioned that the Earth is far more sensitive to fossil fuels than previously thought and that humanity is hurtling toward tipping points from which there can be no return.
In a recent study, a group of researchers from the University of Melbourne complicated this debate with an analysis of warming rates across the globe and possible causes for regional differences. Their principal finding: The globe is getting hotter at a faster rate, but this acceleration is occurring unevenly. Surprisingly, densely populated areas with large concentrations of poverty — megacities like Cairo and Mumbai — are warming more slowly than urban centers in Europe and North America. Why? The researchers found that the large quantity of aerosol particles in the air of highly polluted cities reflect sunlight back out into space and, at least in the short term, can have a net cooling effect on populations.
“It’s a brain-twister,” said Edith de Guzman, an adaptation policy specialist at the University of California at Los Angeles Luskin Center for Innovation, who commended the researchers for their work. The authors of the paper emphasized that the finding should hardly be taken as a good sign. For one, it’s likely only temporary. And secondly, the protection, such as it is, only comes from harmful pollutants. De Guzman concurred, saying accelerated warming means that “populations that are already grossly vulnerable to a variety of environmental and climate injustices will be more vulnerable.”
As countries develop economically, their governments tend to adopt policies to clean up pollution, and as the air clears, vulnerable populations will be at a high risk of dangerous heat exposure. Christopher Schwalm, the Risk Program Director at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, offered the example of China, where the government has begun to equip its coal-fired power plants with emissions reduction technologies like scrubbers, to prevent soot from escaping the facility. Such measures are good for the quality of the air, he said, but they will allow more heat from the sun to seep in. The hardest hit will be those without access to air conditioners and shaded areas.
“The poorer you are the hotter it gets, where heat is a metaphor for all forms of climate disruption,” Schwalm said. “It’s really hard to do good for not doing bad.”
Schwalm explained that the scientific community has about three dozen highly sophisticated climate models that are collectively thought of as a “panel of experts” on the trajectory of global warming. He believes that examining accelerated warming is useful because it can help countries plan for climate adaptation measures and understand how realistic their current climate policy goals are — or aren’t.
Last year, the world blew past the emissions targets from 2015’s Paris Agreement, and is on track to do the same this year. Scientists are increasingly vocal about the so-called death of the Paris Agreement’s commitment to keep the world below a temperature increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), in attempts to force policymakers to contend with the inevitability of worsening heat waves and extreme weather events to come.
The authors of the Melbourne paper offer much-needed insight about what that future will look like and how nations should prepare: Their findings should encourage “targeted climate adaptation strategies” directed at the poorest urban communities around the world.
Airbnb has announced it’s deploying to prevent “unauthorized and disruptive parties” from happening at homes on its platform for New Year’s Eve. If you were planning on hosting a get-together, start thinking of a Plan B.
The company says it’s using machine learning to identify and block high-risk, whole-home bookings in advance based on a variety of criteria. Airbnb’s assessment takes into account things like the length of a trip, how far a listing is from your current location, and when you’re trying to book to weed out potentially disruptive parties. If you’re booking a two-night stay a week before New Year’s Eve, you’re likely to tingle Airbnb’s anti-party senses. The company will either block your reservation entirely or direct you to different accommodations.
Party detection technology will be used in countries and regions globally, according to Airbnb. If you’re trying to book an entire home in “the US, Puerto Rico, Canada, the UK, France, Spain, Australia and New Zealand,” you’ll also have to be willing to stay for more than three days and agree to a “mandatory anti-party attestation” to be allowed to book.
Airbnb’s transformation into the party police has been happening for a few years at this point. The company claims that it blocked 74,000 people globally from booking an entire home listing for a party in 2023. It’s also its machine learning tech to weed out unauthorized events before. Airbnb’s stricter stance towards events started in earnest during 2019, after five people died in a shooting at an Airbnb listing. Airbnb outright in 2020, and the company now offers hosts multiple tools for tamping down noise complaints, including that can be placed in homes to detect noises over a certain volume.
If you’re stepping into your fitness era and wondering how long it’ll take to see changes in your muscles, here’s everything you need to know. When it comes to your body, lasting change won’t happen overnight. Many people expect to see quick results when trying to build muscle. It’s understandable, especially when you constantly see others showing off their progress on social media. However, the process can be slow and depends on more factors than just hitting the gym or doing at-home workouts regularly. Your diet, rest and even genetics play a big role in how your body responds to training and how quickly you’ll see those muscle gains. You might feel tempted to push yourself harder to see faster results, but it’s best to be patient and trust the process. After all, you don’t want to overdo it and get injured.
If you’re on a quest for bigger and more toned muscles, it’s important to start your new workout plan with the right expectations. Lifting weights is the best way to build muscle over time. Research supports resistance training, especially weightlifting, as the best method for inducing hypertrophy (the scientific term for muscle growth).
Here you’ll learn how long it takes to build muscle and what factors influence your ability to get stronger, leaner and fitter from weight training.
Each muscle is made up of muscle fibers, which are cylindrical cells. Weight training breaks them down and recovery helps them grow.
Roger Harris/Science Photo Library/Getty Images
From talking fridges to iPhones, our experts are here to help make the world a little less complicated.
Building muscle involves the repair of microtraumas in your muscle fibers. Here’s a breakdown of this extremely complex process:
1. Each muscle is made up of thousands of tiny muscle fibers.
2. When you lift weights (or do body weight exercises), your muscles endure tiny injuries throughout their fibers.
3. Then, when you rest your muscles, your body begins repairing your damaged muscle cells.
4. The repair process involves fusing torn muscle fibers back together, as well as laying down new proteins within each muscle cell.
5. Your muscles become bigger and stronger as a result of the repair process.
Keep in mind that the above is a tremendously simplified version of what actually happens in your body after a weight training workout. In reality, the process includes more than just your muscles — your nervous system, circulatory system and endocrine system all contribute to muscle repair and growth.
From talking fridges to iPhones, our experts are here to help make the world a little less complicated.
How long does it take to build muscle?
Building muscle is super hard. If it was easy, we’d all be ripped.
Peter Muller/Getty Images
There’s no one muscle-building timeline, because several factors affect your ability to build muscle mass, including:
Your protein intake: While all macronutrients have their roles, protein is king when it comes to building muscle. Your muscles need adequate protein to repair themselves after the stress of weight training. Without enough protein, muscle growth stagnates.
Your calorie intake: If you don’t eat enough calories on a daily basis, you won’t build muscle even if you eat a lot of protein. To build muscle, your body must create new tissue, and it can’t create something from nothing. Extra fuel from extra calories expedites muscle recovery and growth. This is one reason many people never reach their muscle growth goals — they aren’t willing to deal with the extra body fat that comes along with a muscle-building phase.
Your sleep schedule: Lifting weights while sleep-deprived isn’t a smart strategy. You might see some gains, but you definitely can’t optimize muscle growth when you don’t give your body a fighting chance to recover.
Your lifting routine: If you’re trying to build muscle, you should know about two key strength training concepts: frequency and volume. Frequency refers to how often you train a muscle or muscle group, while volume refers to the total load you stress a muscle with.
For example, if you perform three sets of 10 reps on squats using 100 pounds, your total volume is 3,000 pounds. More volume and higher frequency typically equate to more muscle, unless you reach the point of overtraining.
Your training age: The more advanced you are, the less muscle growth you’ll see (yeah, that sounds backward). Everyone has a maximum genetic potential for muscle growth, and the closer you get to yours, the harder it gets to build more muscle.
Your actual age: Like a lot of things, building muscle gets harder as you get older. Sarcopenia, or loss of muscle mass and function, is actually a big problem in older adults. That’s one reason why it’s so important to stay active as you get older.
Other major factors include your genetic potential for building muscle (which is impossible to quantify without lab testing, and even then, kind of wishy-washy) and your testosterone levels — which is why men typically have more muscle than women. Other hormones, including human growth hormone and insulin growth factor also play a role in muscle growth.
All that said, the muscle-building process starts the moment you challenge your muscles to do something. True beginners might see muscle growth within six weeks of starting a resistance training program, and advanced lifters may see results within six to eight weeks of switching up their usual strength training regimen.
Regardless of fitness level, building muscle takes several weeks, even when your diet, sleep and training regimen are all dialed in to optimize muscle growth.
Can you build muscle doing cardio?
Cardio that involves high-volume weight training can help you build muscle.
Eugenio Marongiu/Getty Images
This depends on your definition of cardio and your training age. Most people won’t build much muscle from traditional cardio, such as walking or jogging, and people who’ve been training for a long time definitely won’t build new muscle through traditional cardio. It doesn’t recruit your muscles in a way that sends a muscle-building signal to your body.
However, cardio that involves high-intensity exercises like plyometrics (think jump squats) or high-volume weight training can help you build muscle to an extent. Sprinting hills, hiking, skiing and other outdoor cardio can also contribute a small amount to muscle mass, especially for beginners. People with a long training history may not see as much success with cardio.
Although cardio can improve your overall fitness and help build muscle in select scenarios, strength training remains the best way to build muscle mass.
Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,000 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today – or scroll down further for the answers.
Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles, while Marc’s Wordle today column covers the original viral word game.
SPOILER WARNING: Information about Quordle today is below, so don’t read on if you don’t want to know the answers.
Quordle today (game #1056) – hint #1 – Vowels
How many different vowels are in Quordle today?
• The number of different vowels in Quordle today is 4*.
* Note that by vowel we mean the five standard vowels (A, E, I, O, U), not Y (which is sometimes counted as a vowel too).
Quordle today (game #1056) – hint #2 – repeated letters
Do any of today’s Quordle answers contain repeated letters?
• The number of Quordle answers containing a repeated letter today is 2.
Quordle today (game #1056) – hint #3 – uncommon letters
Do the letters Q, Z, X or J appear in Quordle today?
• No. None of Q, Z, X or J appear among today’s Quordle answers.
What letters do today’s Quordle answers start with?
• D
• S
• L
• G
Right, the answers are below, so DO NOT SCROLL ANY FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.
Quordle today (game #1056) – the answers
(Image credit: Merriam-Webster)
The answers to today’s Quordle, game #1056, are…
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I started with Point and Break today. There are no repeat letters, so it’s not a bad punt – and well, it’s my tribute to one of the greatest films of all time.
But where did my gamble get me? I went to the red zone as I ran out of lines for LINEN and climbed on board the last train to Loserville.
As the rain thunders down on my laptop and the waves crash, there is only one thing left to say word-surfing Quordle friends…
