Literary Review – February 2023 Issue:
Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution
Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning By Nigel Biggar
Spying on the Reich: The Cold War Against Hitler By R T Howard\
The New Review (February 5, 2023): @natasha_walter on the state’s crackdown on the right to protest Plus: @marktpower’s shipping forecast photographs @RobertDFBooks interviewed by @MsRachelCooke On my radar: @paramore’s Hayley Williams & more.
Biomorphic architecture is a style of architectural design that emphasizes natural shapes and patterns. As such, biomorphic architecture is inspired by organic forms like plants, animals, or the natural elements.
Just like white, black is not in the strict sense of the term a color, however it is associated with it from a psychological point of view, black conveying just like a color a symbolism. Scientifically, black refers to black holes and nothingness. In optics, black absorbs all wavelengths and is therefore characterized by its apparent absence of color, unlike white which is obtained by returning all the wavelengths it absorbs in equal parts. In the West, black is associated with mourning, sadness and despair, fear and death.
Labradorite is a mineral synonymous with security and regeneration. Discover its unique reflections that will remind you of the beauty of the polar skies and equip yourself with this strong energy shield to protect yourself from external negative energies.
Design Artist: Julius Roy
The New York Times Magazine – February 5, 2023:
Hot flashes, sleeplessness, pain during sex: For some of menopause’s worst symptoms, there’s an established treatment. Why aren’t more women offered it?
Fani Willis’s aggressive tactics have sparked criticism — and won over voters. What do they tell us about how she might prosecute the former president?
Sturgeon are disappearing from North American rivers where they thrived for millions of years. And the quest to save them is exposing the limits of the Endangered Species Act.
Mecanoo Architects, The Netherlands – The façade’s colour and appearance plays a part in the transition from dune to polder landscape.
The monolithic presence of the building volume is accentuated through the sloping roof surfaces and exterior walls. These are covered with tiles of the same continuous material – multicoloured glazed ceramic tiles. The hue of these tiles forms a coherent whole, making a connection and blending the building into the transformative landscape.
The naturally sloping landscape embraces Villa BW, with a building volume characterised by a double-curved roof coupled with an unmistakable expression of the facade. The twisting roof is created as a result of two overlapping shapes. A gable roof is designed on the dune-side, also characteristic of the street scene on the Oorsprongweg. In contrast, a horizontal roofline is designed for the polder-side.
The villa is constructed over three floors, with an additional level within the hood of the roof. Due to the natural course of the terrain and the replenishment of an embankment as a continuation of the dune landscape, the ground floor and basement level at -1 have a direct relationship with the surroundings. Facing southeast the connection with the landscape alongside the sloped garden is enhanced by enclosing two voids with a curtain wall system.
The strong connection between the landscape and the house translates into the expression of the facade and roof cladding with the application of a single natural material, expressed through a custom ceramic tile covering that wraps the entire building. This customised multicoloured glazed tile cladding represents the transitions in the landscape, from dune landscape to polder, and the soil layers, from light to dark.
The Guardian Weekly (February 3, 2023) – In the trenches of eastern Ukraine, much of the conflict with Russia has been frozen for several months now. But, as the northern winter moves on, that could be about to change. The initial invasion has been followed by a period of attrition, and a third phase of the war now appears imminent.
Military activity along parts of the front is increasing and it is assumed that, sooner or later, one side will try to break the deadlock. The question, as Julian Borger writes this week for the Guardian Weekly magazine’s big story, is who will strike first and where?
As Julian explains, it is likely to be “an all-out battle for decisive advantage using combined arms … to overcome fixed positions. Europe has witnessed nothing of its sort since the second world war.”
That’s not to say there aren’t signs of anxiety among Ukraine’s regional allies, though. Germany’s decision last week to send its Leopard tanks to Ukraine may yet prove critical in the coming battle, but as German journalist Jan-Philipp Hein points out, Berlin’s military support for Kyiv remains far from wholehearted.
In the UK, the sacking of Nadhim Zahawi as Tory chairman over an undeclared tax dispute while he was the chancellor (and thus in charge of tax collection) kept the pressure on prime minister Rishi Sunak, political editor Pippa Crerar reports; while in Opinion, Nesrine Malik says the episode reveals much about Britain’s networks of power and influence.
Meat from the butchered beasts would have fed hundreds
A magma network may feed into different volcanoes, including Mauna Loa and Kīlauea
Desert knowledge exchange cloaked imperial goals, argues a political geographer
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But America’s plan to spend $2trn could help save the planet
A short-seller’s report raises uncomfortable questions for India’s policymakers, too
Another embargo comes into force on February 5th. Manage your expectations
OpenAI’s AI Text Classifier aims to spot content generated by AI platforms before it can be used by bad actors, but the company admits it’s not perfect
A week is a long time in artificial intelligence, so here’s a round-up of the AI Magazine articles that have been starting conversations around the world
New blood tests can reveal whether your immune system is fighting fit by looking at the balance of different immune cells, but there may be a simpler way of gauging your immune health
Banded mongooses have long been used as a model of animal cooperation. Now, researchers in Uganda are starting to get to grips with the harsh realities of their long-running and bloody battles
In some cases, it is now possible to genetically engineer the immune system to banish cancers like T-cell leukaemia that were previously unresponsive to treatments
