• The method in Jackson Pollock’s madness
• The problem with Russian money in the art world
• What war photography looks like today
• Philip Guston’s uneasy quest for freedom
Plus: The women artists gazing at men, the portraits of Glyn Philpot, and Elizabeth David’s taste in Old Masters; and reviews of Donatello in Florence, Boilly in Paris, Kafka’s drawings and Stephen Shore’s memoir.
Cells acquire mutations throughout life, a process that is known to give rise to cancer and has been proposed to contribute to ageing. There is little knowledge, however, about the rate at which mutations accumulate in species other than humans, and whether this rate is influenced by biological traits such as lifespan or body size. In this week’s issue, Alex Cagan, Adrian Baez-Ortega and colleagues address these questions. The researchers studied the speed at which mutations accumulate during life in 16 mammalian species and found that the number of mutations increases by a roughly constant amount each year. They also observed that the molecular processes causing mutations are broadly similar across species. Crucially, the team identified a strong anticorrelation between lifespan and mutation rate: longer-lived species accrue mutations at a slower pace than shorter-lived ones, such that different species have roughly the same number of mutations by the end of their respective lifespans.
What honor required of men.
During World War II, François Tosquelles treated patients by addressing the sickness of society
Oklahoma
On the cover of the Innovation & Technology Issue, Christoph Niemann captures the eternal tug of war between the lure of the outside and the joys of technology. Even for a prehistoric cave dweller, the tablet could prove potently absorbing. The dilemma has only grown as the number and variety of technological gadgets has proliferated. We recently talked to the artist about the place of digital tools and good old-fashioned paper and pencil in his creative process.
Intellicurious 