Megastructure stretching nearly 1 kilometre long is probably one of the oldest known hunting aids on Earth.
People infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 cleared the virus more quickly if they had high levels of certain immune cells.
The laboratory-grown food uses rice as a scaffold for cultured meat.
Country Life Magazine – February 21, 2024: The ‘The Fine Arts Issue’ – Artists who say it with flowers and the AI debate; Wig law, daffodils and how does your hedgerow grow?….
With the technology powering artificial intelligence advancing so rapidly, what can artists do to protect their original work?
Michael Prodger examines how flowers have inspired artists for centuries, from the ancient Egyptians up to the present day
The periwigs that were a 17th-century status symbol are still a mainstay of our legal system, as Agnes Stamp discovers
They have long been used to contain cattle or define boundaries, but hedges can be beautiful, too, argues Charles Quest-Ritson
Alan Titchmarsh takes a wander with Wordsworth as he dreams of spring daffodils ‘fluttering and dancing in the breeze’
The architect falls under the spell of a gritty, but humorous work
Jamie Blackett is ready to man the barricades to scupper plans for an unwanted national park
John Goodall applauds the restoration of Leighton House in London, which formed the hub of a 19th-century celebrity circle
Mary Miers follows the globe-trotting Sir John Lavery from Ireland to Africa and beyond
An inspiring oil painting was at the centre of a heist with a happy ending, reveals Carla Passino
A protective force in China and Wales, but a symbol of greed and evil in England: Lucien de Guise delves into dragon lore
Hetty Lintell celebrates the best of the Art Deco era with earrings old and new, but always modern
The astonishing King’s Lodge suite at The Connaught is fit for a monarch, finds Rosie Paterson
Amelia Thorpe shares the very best of London Design Week
Tilly Ware meets the wild-seed pioneer ‘nurturing the future’
Ben Lerwill finds the salt of the earth on the coast of Scotland
Melanie Johnson on rhubarb
A real-life couple are in harmony on stage, finds Michael Billington
Times Literary Supplement (February 21, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Unknown Leader’ – Fintan O’Toole looks for clues in a biography of Keir Starmer; Zelensky on the ropes; Ukraine’s rock star poet; Habermas and social media and The novel of the Year?….
How Big Tech is losing the wars of the future
“Artificial intelligence may indeed affect the way our military operates. But the notion that bright-eyed visionaries from the tech industry are revolutionizing our military machine promotes a myth that this relationship is not only new, but will fundamentally improve our defense system—one notorious for its insatiable appetite for money, poorly performing weapons, and lost wars. In reality, the change flows in the other direction, as new recruits enter the warm embrace of the imperishable military-industrial complex, eager to learn its ways.”
Among the antinatalists
“People would rather be enthusiastic collaborators in a global project than be skeptics of its fundamental integrity. Antinatalism implies or counts on our eventual extinction, and thinking this way is painful.”
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (February 17, 2024): The new issue features ‘Actors in the Wild’ – The best performers of the year, when they’re not on film….
The best performers of the year — when they’re not on film.
James Nachtwey, an eminent photojournalist known for his intimate depictions of the front lines in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Ukraine, had never photographed a movie star before. So for this year’s Great Performers issue, we asked him to capture a dozen of the world’s best actors away from the red carpets and awards ceremonies that often define how we see them. “My work has focused almost exclusively on conflicts and critical social issues, the polar opposite of what might be thought of as celebrity photography,” Nachtwey says. But he was intrigued by the challenge: “Art takes talent, but it’s also hard work, and exploring what actors practice in their daily lives to strengthen their art would be fascinating.”
Their films have gone viral for their awful production values. But their success says fascinating things about what comes after prestige TV.
By Niela Orr
There’s a 2008 movie that offers an odd preview of today’s entertainment. In Michel Gondry’s “Be Kind Rewind,” a bizarre accident demagnetizes the entire inventory of a video rental store, so a clerk and his eccentric friend decide to remake all the films themselves, from “The Lion King” to “Driving Miss Daisy” to “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Their versions are 20 minutes long (at most), shot on an old hand-held video camera and produced in a delightfully quirky, ad hoc way: handcrafted props and sets, buddies working as extras, costumes from the local dry cleaner.
BARRON’S MAGAZINE – FEBRUARY 19, 2024 ISSUE:
The candidates have divergent views on critical matters tied to economic growth. Why investors should pay attention.
Daleep Singh, a PGIM economist heading back to the White House, says the world’s challenges are going to require more fiscal spending.
A series of consequential elections around the world, including one in the U.S., could affect investors for years to come.Long read
The New Criterion – The March 2024 issue features:
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (February 16, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Philip Gefter’s sizzling, “unapologetically obsessive” new book, “Cocktails With George and Martha: Movies, Marriage and the Making of ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’” Our critic Alexandra Jacobs calls it “a shot glass filled with one work that, alongside contemporaneous books like Richard Yates’s novel ‘Revolutionary Road’ and Betty Friedan’s polemic ‘The Feminine Mystique,’ showed how the ‘cartoon versions of marriage’ long served up by American popular culture always came with a secret side of bitters.”
With Burton and Taylor as stars and a writer and director feuding, adapting the scabrous play wasn’t easy. “Cocktails With George and Martha” pours out the details.
A story collection from Diane Oliver, who died at 22, locates the strength in Black families surviving their separate but equal surroundings.
In her powerful new memoir, the author examines a life composed of conflicting identities — and fierce, contradictory desires.
NEW HUMANIST MAGAZINE – SPRING 2024 ISSUE: The new issue features Emma Park on how the culture wars are damaging the sciences, theoretical physicist Tasneem Zehra Husain on why the imagination is key to decoding the universe, and Alom Shaha on what can be gained by thinking like a scientist…
Amid a polarised debate, science and art seem further apart than ever. Emma Park, editor of The Freethinker, explores what humanism has to teach us about the apparent conflict between these ways of thinking and how to bridge the divide.
“While humanities scholars are often (not without justification) accused of being Luddites, those on the science and technology side could also benefit from the knowledge that the humanities have accumulated over the centuries … [And] no intellectual activity worth the name can flourish in a politically repressive environment: freedom of expression and enquiry should be an issue to unite artists, scholars and scientists.”
Metaphors are key to unlocking the secrets of the universe – scientists should do more to harness their power, writes acclaimed physicist Tasneem Zehra Husain.
“Metaphors aren’t only a means of description, they can also lead to revelations. Centuries ago, Newton was able to calculate the gravitational attraction between two objects … [but] would ‘feign no hypothesis’ as to why it was so. He had the equation, but he did not understand gravitation … With Einstein, we finally have a metaphor. When we picture space-time as a dynamic ‘fabric’ … we begin to understand what gravity means.”
Updrafts from dark solar panels could fuel storms
eROSITA telescope shows galaxies’ “clumpiness” matches predicted effect of dark energy, dark matter
Intellicurious 