Category Archives: Reviews

Research Preview: Science Magazine – Oct 28, 2022

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Science Magazine – The skeleton of Hope, a young female blue whale that beached in Ireland in 1891, is suspended from the ceiling of London’s Natural History Museum, pictured here empty of visitors while the museum was closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bursts in skull evolution weakened with time

The skull shapes of mammals diversified more rapidly early in their history

Forgotten Ebola vaccine could help in outbreak

Merck unearths a frozen batch of an experimental vaccine it made years ago

Harvard studies on infant monkeys draw fire

Experiments involving eyelid suturing and maternal separation divide scientists

Monkeypox outbreak is ebbing—but why exactly?

Models suggest rising immunity in a small group of people, not vaccination, is key

Previews: The Economist Magazine – Oct 29, 2022

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Rishi Sunak’s promise of stability is a low bar for Britain

Reasons to be cheerful are scant

Will Iran’s women win?

Their uprising could be the beginning of the end of Iran’s theocracy

India’s next green revolution

The country’s clean-energy push shows a way to escape the coal addiction

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Oct 27, 2022

Volume 610 Issue 7933

Research Highlights

Food Science: Developing Hardier Coffee Beans (FT)

Financial Times – One of world’s favorite drinks is under threat from global warming. The world’s top coffee producing nations all lie at similar tropical latitudes, where even small rises in temperature are forecast to have severe consequences for people and agriculture. But as the FT’s Nic Fildes reports, in Australia, scientists are tackling the problem by trying to develop a better, hardier coffee bean.

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – October 28, 2022

The cover of the 28 October edition of the Guardian Weekly.

The Guardian – Inside the October 28, 2022 Issue:

Britain’s political fever dream continued apace this week as Rishi Sunak became prime minister without anyone even voting for him. The former chancellor, the country’s third prime minister in less than two months and the fifth in six years, is also the UK’s first leader of colour and the first Hindu to take the office.

Jonathan Freedland considers how big a blow Truss’s ill-judged stint in power has delivered to the school of neoliberal economic thought.

Brazil also faces a judgment day this weekend, as Jair Bolsonaro and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva square up in a presidential runoff of deep significance for the country and the planet, with the protection of the Amazon at stake. The outcome is on such a knife-edge that not even the nation’s gangsters can decide who to vote for, as our Latin America correspondent Tom Phillips reports.

On the subject of the environment, don’t miss Naomi Klein’s long read about how Egypt’s government has used the coming Cop27 conference to greenwash its own oppressive political activities.

Then, there’s a revealing interview with Chelsea Manning, who opens up to Emma Brockes on what really happened when she leaked thousands of classified US military documents.

Books: TLS/Times Literary Supplement – Oct 28, 2022

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This week’s @TheTLS , featuring Helen Vendler on Matthew Hollis’s biography of The Waste Land; Vernon Bogdanor on the UK’s future; Christopher Priest on Terry Pratchett; Felipe Fernández-Armesto on lying; @irinibus on the creative potential of constraints – and more.

Cities: The Skyscraper Boom In Miami, Florida

Miami’s skyscraper boom is happening on the frontlines of the climate crisis.

Miami, city, seat (1844) of Miami-Dade county, southeastern Florida, U.S. A major transportation and business hub, Miami is a leading resort and Atlantic Ocean port situated on Biscayne Bay at the mouth of the Miami River. The Everglades area is a short distance to the west. Greater Miami, the state’s largest urban concentration, comprises all of the county, which includes the cities of Miami Beach (across the bay), Coral Gables, Hialeah, North Miami, and many smaller municipalities and unincorporated areas; together, these make up the southern section of Florida’s “Gold Coast.” 

WORLD JOURNALISM: NEW INTERNATIONALIST – NOV ’22

New Internationalist – NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2022:

TAKE BACK THE LAND

The land beneath our feet is what sustains us – from it we can produce food, construct shelter and build livelihoods. But, it’s also a cultural marker and a source of identity. Its control has been a long-favoured tool of colonizers, wealth hoarders and polluters, while its fiercest protectors – often Indigenous peoples – are criminalized, violated and dispossessed. This edition hears from struggles to take back the land in Brazil, Bangladesh, Kenya and North America. We also launch our new series ‘Decolonize how?’ which will explore what people are doing to dismantle the impacts – and current realities – of British-linked colonialism.

Preview: Tufts Health & Nutrition, November 2022

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Inside the Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter – November 2022:

  • Give Thanks for Good Health
  • Newsbites: Vitamin D; red meat and CVD risk; psyllium and constipation
  • Grain Products: Don’t be Fooled by Healthy-Sounding Labels!
  • Special Report: Top 3 Reasons to Avoid “Top Foods” Lists
  • Diet and Hemorrhoids
  • Featured Recipe: Fresh Cranberry Orange Relish
  • Ask Tufts Experts: Processed foods; calcium intake