Tag Archives: Previews

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – August 31, 2023

Volume 620 Issue 7976

nature Magazine – August 31, 2023 issue: In this week’s issue, AI pilot beats human champions in aerial contest – Artificial intelligence has taken on and beaten human competitors in many games, including chess, StarCraft and Gran Turismo. 

India’s Moon landing is a stellar achievement — and a win for science

A mother along with her daughter arrives to watch landing of Chandrayaan-3's Vikram lander on Moon.

When Chandrayaan-3 touched down, India pulled off a huge win for its own space programme and for international efforts to understand the Moon.

It’s hard to land on the Moon and keep your spacecraft intact. Just days ago, Russia’s Luna-25 mission crashed, dashing hopes for the country’s first trip to the Moon since 1976, when it was part of the Soviet Union. In April, a private Japanese effort also crash-landed on the lunar surface. That is one of the reasons the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is so special.

The causes of wildfires are clear. How they burn through communities is not

Events in Hawaii show how much we have to learn about wildfire spread — but simple research steps can help to build resilience.

An aerial photo from August 10 shows destroyed buildings burned to the ground due to wildfires in western Maui, Hawaii.

Driven by drought, high winds and extreme heat, fires in recent years have caused destruction and losses on a scale bigger than anyone is used to. The average annual global cost of wildfires is around US$50 billion, the World Economic Forum said in January. And by the end of the century, climate change might make catastrophic conflagrations 50% more common, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. Given the surge in urban development in and near forested areas, something has to be done to protect communities. As Maui’s experience shows, little is in place.

Previews: Country Life Magazine – August 30, 2023

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Country Life Magazine – August 30, 2023: This week’s issue features looks at horse racing, Arundel Castle and how to make your own nature reserve.

A princely seat

In the first of two articles, John Goodall examines the early life of Arundel Castle, the Duke of Norfolk’s seat in West Sussex

Take cover

Simon Lester sows the seeds of Nature recovery by ditching chemical fertiliser and planting green manure and cover crops

Conditions of carriage

The history of horse-drawn transport is not all romance and gentility, reveals Charles Harris

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – September 1, 2023

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The Guardian Weekly (September 1, 2023) – The issue features Prigozhin’s downfall – What next for Putin, Russia and Wagner?; Zadie Smith returns to the streets of London; Protecting the Arctic Sea, and more…

Andrew Roth explores what the legacy of the Wagner warlord might be for Russia – which may well hinge on Putin himself and how the war in Ukraine turns out.

Pjotr Sauer looks at the array of methods used to dispose of Putin’s political enemies in the past, while Dino Mahtani asks what will happen to Wagner group’s clandestine operations in Africa now its enigmatic boss is no longer in the picture.

In Spotlight, a beautiful photo-essay by Ossie Michelin and Eldred Allen transports us to the Canadian Arctic where, amid alarming signs of warmer winters and receding ice, Inuit people are planning to turn 15,000 sq km of the Labrador Sea into a unique conservation zone.

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Sept 1, 2023

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Times Literary Supplement (September 1, 2023): The extraordinary story of the OED; Shakespeare quotations for everyday life; Benjamín Labatut’s infernal vision; histories of learning and forgetting; rules for reviewers – and much more

Preview: London Review Of Books – Sept 7, 2023

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London Review of Books (LRB) – September 7, 2023: The new issue features Colm Tóibín review of ‘Annotations to James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’; Desperate Midwives; French Short Stories; Catastrophic Thinking and Plant Detectives…

Arruginated: James Joyce’s Errors

By Colm Tóibín

Amazon.com: Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses: 9780198864585: Slote,  Sam, Mamigonian, Marc A., Turner, John: Books

Annotations to James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses’ 
by Sam Slote, Marc A. Mamigonian and John Turner.

Ulysses is haunted by the story of its own composition. As Joyce famously put it, ‘I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of ensuring one’s immortality.’ The annotators point out, however, that it is ‘very likely that Joyce never said this’.

Previews: The New Yorker Magazine – Sept 4, 2023

A man hides behind a tree while a woman and dog run past.

The New Yorker – September 4, 2023 issue: The issue’s cover features James Thurber’s “New Tricks”, discussed by the artist’s granddaughter and his legacy and his love for his canine companions.

How a Man in Prison Stole Millions from Billionaires

With smuggled cell phones and a handful of accomplices, Arthur Lee Cofield, Jr., took money from large bank accounts and bought houses, cars, clothes, and gold.

Illustration of an IPhone showing modern home on the screen surrounding the phone shows a prison.

By Charles Bethea

Early in 2020, the architect Scott West got a call at his office, in Atlanta, from a prospective client who said that his name was Archie Lee. West designs luxurious houses in a spare, angular style one might call millionaire modern. Lee wanted one. That June, West found an appealing property in Buckhead—an upscale part of North Atlanta that attracts both old money and new—and told Lee it might be a good spot for them to build. Lee arranged for his wife to meet West there.

Coco Gauff’s Glorious Progress

Tennis player Coco Gauff smiles on a tennis court

Gauff has the charisma and talent to be not just a champion but a star, and this summer she has played better than ever before.

By Gerald Marzorati

Last weekend, at a tournament in the Cincinnati suburb of Mason, Coco Gauff beat Iga Świątek for the first time. It was one of those moments in tennis when the ground seemed to shift: Gauff had never taken a set from Świątek, the current world No. 1, in the seven previous times they’d met. It was the biggest win of Gauff’s young career—but it was in keeping with a high-summer revving of her already formidable game. In the hard-court tournaments held across North America which are essentially warmups for the U.S. Open, Gauff has been the imposing presence that the tennis world has been waiting for her to become—waiting avidly, for sure, but a little anxiously, too. As recently as early July, when she lost in the first round at Wimbledon, there was fretting that she wasn’t making quick enough progress. 

National Geographic Traveller – October 2023

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National Geographic Traveller Magazine (October 2023): This issue features Thailand – Idyllic Tropical Islands, a Bangkok Food Tour, and a visit with Northern Hill Tribes; A road trip along the Dalmatian Coast; Morocco – Hiking in the High Atlas Mountains and more…

Finance Preview: Barron’s Magazine – August 28, 2023

Magazine - Latest Issue - Barron's

BARRON’S MAGAZINE – AUGUST 28, 2023 ISSUE:

Weather Is Wreaking Havoc With Insurance. These Companies Can Handle the Storm.

Weather Is Wreaking Havoc With Insurance. These Companies Can Handle the Storm.

Backed by nearly $1 trillion in capital and rising premiums, insurers might actually profit off the coming wave of catastrophic weather.

Floods, Wildfires, and Droughts: People Still Moving to Hotspots

Floods, Wildfires, and Droughts: People Still Moving to Hotspots

Why millions of Americans continue to move to areas exposed to high climate risks.

How to Get Extra Yield on Your Cash

Bonds are close to becoming more attractive than stocks.

This Invesco Pro Is High on China, ETFs, Today’s Markets—and the Future

This Invesco Pro Is High on China, ETFs, Today’s Markets—and the Future

Marty Flanagan spent 18 years as Invesco’s CEO. During that time, he transformed the assets manager by expanding operations in Asia and acquiring the PowerShares ETF brand.Long read

SharkNinja Reinvented the Ice Cream Maker. Its Stock Is a Buy.

SharkNinja Reinvented the Ice Cream Maker. Its Stock Is a Buy.

The company has been a consistent and successful innovator in small appliances, an industry that has been marked by slow growth and few exciting new products.4 min

The New York Times Book Review – August 27, 2023

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THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW (August 27, 2023) The new issue features: James McBride’s Latest Is a Murder Mystery Inside a Great American Novel; The First Chinese American Movie Star and the Cost of Glittering Fame, and more…

James McBride’s Latest Is a Murder Mystery Inside a Great American Novel

“The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store” opens with the discovery of a skeleton in a well, and then flashes back to explore its connection to a town’s Black, Jewish and immigrant history.

By Danez Smith

A few weeks ago, around the same time I was working on this review, I visited the Guggenheim with my fiancé. The exhibition on display as we trekked up the museum’s famous spiral was “Measuring Infinity,” a marvelous retrospective on the work of the great Venezuelan artist Gego. A German Jew who fled Nazi persecution in Europe, Gego arrived in Venezuela in 1939 and went on to become one of the most important artists to emerge from Latin America in the 20th century. Her work speaks to a deep curiosity about the interrelation of shapes, things and the dimensions created by those relationships.

The First Chinese American Movie Star and the Cost of Glittering Fame

This is a black-and-white photograph of the actress Anna May Wong. She is wearing a heavily embroidered dress and looking down, with her chin resting on one of her hands. She has blunt-cut bangs, and the rest of her hair is hidden by a giant scarf wrapped over her head.

A new biography of Anna May Wong, “Daughter of the Dragon,” is intended as a form of reclamation and subversion.


By Jennifer Szalai

It was, according to the film historian Kevin Brownlow, “one of the most racist films ever made in America.” “Old San Francisco” (1927) featured a white actor playing a Chinese villain passing as a white man (got that?) who plans to sell an innocent white girl into white slavery until he is conveniently crushed by an earthquake. Before his grisly end he is aided in his nefarious scheme by an Asian character identified only as “a flower of the Orient,” played by an ingénue named Anna May Wong.

Views: The New York Times Magazine – August 27, 2023

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THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (August 27, 2023) – In this week’s cover story, Jen Percy reports on what people misunderstand about rape. Plus, the case that could unravel an art dynasty and a Harvard professor who is also an alien hunter.

What People Misunderstand About Rape

A photo illustration of a woman in a black-and-white collage.

Sexual assault often goes unpunished when victims fail to fight back. But investigators, psychologists and biologists all describe freezing as an involuntary response to trauma.

By Jen Percy

There’s a lingua franca that women use, a repeated vocabulary to describe what they experience and think during a sexual assault. Variations of “freezing” are often part of that vocabulary. But the word has so many referents in its colloquial usage that it’s hard to know precisely what it means to each person saying it.

“I just absolutely froze,” Brooke Shields said in the documentary “Pretty Baby,” describing how she felt when being raped. “And I just thought, Stay alive and get out.”

The Inheritance Case That Could Unravel an Art Dynasty

How a widow’s legal fight against the Wildenstein family of France has threatened their storied collection — and revealed the underbelly of the global art market.

By Rachel Corbett

Twenty years ago, a glamorous platinum-blond widow arrived at the Paris law office of Claude Dumont Beghi in tears. Someone was trying to take her horses — her “babies” — away, and she needed a lawyer to stop them.