Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Dec. 12, 2024

Volume 636 Issue 8042

Nature Magazine – December 11, 2024: The latest issue features ‘Digestive Tracks’ – Fossilized vomit and poo reveal how dinosaurs came to dominate ancient ecosystems…

Do you drink coffee? Ask your gut

Largest study of links between consumption of the beverage and gut diversity finds coffee-loving bacteria.

Has Venus ever had an ocean? Its volcanoes hint at an answer

Chemistry of the planet’s atmosphere suggests that its interior has never held water.

Ancient stacks of dishes tell tale of society’s dissolution

Artefacts from a Mesopotamian archaeological site suggest that people in the region founded and later rejected an early form of the organized state.

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Dec. 13, 2024

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Times Literary Supplement (December 11, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The tragic Queen of France’ – The legend of Marie Antoinette; William Dalrymple’s Indian empire; Mary Beard – A night at the museum; The coffee house scientist; What Kindle readers want…

Arts: The Brooklyn Rail – December/January 2025

The Brooklyn Rail (December 11, 2024): The latest issue features…

“When you invent the ship, you must also invent the shipwreck; when you invent the plane, you must also invent the plane crash; and when you invent electricity, you invent electrocution… Every technology carries its own negativity, which is invented at the same time as technical progress.”
–Paul Virilio

“The human spirit must prevail over technology.”
–Albert Einstein

Art

Critics Page

ArtSeen

Sylvia Plimack Mangold: Tapes, Fields, and Trees, 1975–84 – By Rebecca Allan

David Smith: The Nature of Sculpture – By Phong Bui

Siena: The Rise of Painting, 1300–1350 – By David Carrier

Jaeheon Lee: Ghosts in the Garden – By William Corwin

Edges of Ailey – By Ekin Erkan

Patterns in Abstraction – By Leia Genis

Jordan Nassar: THERE – By Robert Alan Grand

Jay DeFeo: Trees – By Suzanne Hudson

Nour Mobarak: Dafne Phono – By Eana Kim

Yuli Yamagata: Ghosts Don’t Wear Watches – By Alfred Mac Adam

Soledad Sevilla: Ritmos, tramas, variables – By Valerie Mindlin

Mark Bradford: Keep Walking – By Charles Moore

André Griffo: Exploded View – By Rômulo Moraes

Jesse Krimes: Corrections – By Joanna Seifter

Lynne Drexler: Color Notes – By David Whelan

Rosemarie Beck: Earthly Paradise – By Leah Triplett Harrington

Francesco Clemente: Summer Love in the Fall – By Selena Parnon

Sean Scully: Duane Street, 1981–1983 – By Raphy Sarkissian

Henni Alftan: Stop Making Sense – By Ann C. Collins

Hap Tivey: Perception is the Medium – By Benjamin Clifford

William Gropper: Artist of the People – By Margot Yale

Los Angeles Review Of Books – Winter 2024-2025

LA Review of Books (December 11, 2024)The latest issue, #43 – Fixation, features:

Conversation

A Precise Excavation of the Soul: A Conversation with Hilton Als by Melissa Seley

Nonfiction

Mean Mommies: Care in Contemporary Queer Literature by Jenny Fran Davis

Our Ambassadors to the Future: Relics of—and for—ourselves by Christina Wood

The Only Girl in the World: On Madonna and ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’ by Brontez Purnell

Homespun Tiara: A Profile of Model and Activist Geena Rocero by Enzo Escober

Syria’s Forgotten Island of Opposition: A report from the al-Tanf military compound by Charlie Clewis

Bedrock: On gravesites literal and not by Charley Burlock

American Blondes: Are we having more fun yet? by Arielle Gordon

Fiction

Bright by Grace Byron

Finishing Moves by Evan McGarvey

Witches of Fresno and Pigfoot by Venita Blackburn

The Good Life by Brady Brickner-Wood

The Aforementioned Journal by David Hollander

Poetry

Srdičko Bolí by Claressinka Anderson

Has Your Spirit Dried Up? by emet ezell

I Haven’t Heard My Brother’s Voice in Ten Years by Douglas Manuel

Montauk by Connie Voisine

Straining for the Noise by Jenny Xie

Art

Lida Abdul

Preview: Philosophy Now Magazine January 2025

Philosophy Now Magazine (December 11,2024)The new issue features ‘The Return of God?’ and Social Media & Plato’s Cave…

Return to God?

by Rick Lewis

NEWS

News: December 2024 / January 2025

Lost Hegel lecture notes now being digitized • Professor Ted Honderich dead at 91 — News reports by Anja Steinbauer

SOCIAL MEDIA

Plato’s Cave & Social Media

Seán Radcliffe asks, has Plato’s Allegory of the Cave been warning us of social media for 2,400 years?

Trolls, Skeptics & Philosophers

Rosemary Twomey questions our online epistemology.

THE RETURN OF GOD?

Exploring Atheism

Amrit Pathak gives us a run-down of the foundations of modern atheism.

A Critique of Pure Atheism

Andrew Likoudis questions the basis of some popular atheist arguments.

Evil & An Omnipotent, Benevolent God

Zdeněk Petráček looks at the biggest problem facing monotheism.

A God of Limited Power

Philip Goff grasps hold of the problem of evil and comes up with a novel solution.

The Best Possible World, But Not For Us

Mohsen Moghri gives a Godless but principled response to the problem of evil.

Medieval Islam & the Nature of God

Musa Mumtaz meditates on two maverick medieval Muslim metaphysicians.

ARTICLES

Metaphors & Creativity

Ignacio Gonzalez-Martinez has a flash of inspiration about the role metaphors play in creative thought.

Seeing & Knowing

Shashwat Mishra explores the limits of perception via the Molyneux problem.

Perpetuating the Santa Deception

Jimmy Alfonso Licon wonders whether pretending there’s a Santa is naughty or nice.

Volney (1757-1820)

John P. Irish travels the path of a revolutionary mind.

How Can We Make A Computer Conscious?

Each answer below receives a random book. Apologies to the entrants not included.

INTERVIEWS

Robert Stern

Robert Stern talks with AmirAli Maleki about philosophy in general, and Kant and Hegel in particular.

LETTERS

Letters

Thoughts on Thoughts on Thoughts • Get Smarter • Decoding A Decoding • A Swift Rebuttal • Basic Arithmetic • A Message on Meaning

COLUMNS

Xenophanes (c.570-c.478 BCE)

by Terence Green

Philosophers on Dance

by Matt Qvortrup

“I refute it thus”

Raymond Tallis kicks immaterialism into touch.

Seneca On Anger

Massimo Pigliucci tells us how to avoid becoming irate.

REVIEWS

Too Late To Awaken by Slavoj Žižek

T.W.J Moxham reads Slavoj Žižek’s little book of Hegelian horrors.

Barriers to Entailment by Gillian Russell

Christopher John Searle recommends a study of which moves are allowed in logical arguments.

It’s A Wonderful Life

Becky Lee Meadows considers questions of guilt, innocence, and despair in this classic Christmas movie.

News: Israel Strikes 500 Military Targets In Syria, Macron Battles Far Right

Monocle Radio Podcast (December 11, 2024): Following the overthrow of the Assad regime, what will happen to the millions of Syrians who were granted asylum abroad? We give you the latest and look at why strikes are continuing.

Plus: Emmanuel Macron’s grand coalition talks, China sends its largest fleet in nearly 30 years to the Taiwan region – and we meet Finland’s ambassador to the UK, Jukka Siukosaari, and Business Finland’s director for western Europe, Jukka Holappa.

The New York Times — Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024

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Suspect in C.E.O. Killing Withdrew From a Life of Privilege and Promise

The suspect, Luigi Mangione, was an Ivy League tech graduate from a prominent Maryland family who in recent months had suffered physical and psychological pain.

How a Realtors’ Nonprofit Quietly Funds Conservative Advocacy Groups

The National Association of Realtors has created a nonprofit that gives more heavily to one side of the political aisle and to groups that have little to do with real estate and housing.

What to Know About Syria’s Notorious Sednaya Prison

Amnesty International described it as a “human slaughterhouse,” where, other rights groups say, tens of thousands of people were detained, tortured and killed during the 13-year civil war.

Rage Grows Over a Spate of Brutal Murders of Women in Kenya

Almost 100 women have been killed in the span of three months, the police say. Rights groups want President William Ruto to declare femicide a national crisis.

Country Life Magazine – December 18, 2024 Preview

Country Life Magazine (December 10, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Christmas Double Issue’…

A story of homeliness

The Revd Dr Colin Heber-Percy considers the Christmas story told in familiar rituals

Earth stood hard as iron

Frost casts a garden’s structure into sharp relief. Tiffany Daneff enters a sparkling world

The Very Revd Jo Kelly-Moore’s favourite painting

The Dean of St Albans chooses a canvas full of uplifting light for dark times

The legacy

Kate Green pays tribute to Dame Ninette de Valois, the ‘godmother of ballet’

Where Britain’s first saint lies

In the first of two articles, John Goodall traces the saintly history of the ancient abbey church of St Albans, Hertfordshire

Love to hear the robin go tweet, tweet, tweet

The feisty robin is the undisputed avian king of Christmas. Mark Cocker wonders why

It’s a most wonderful time of the year

From weaving wreaths to corralling choristers, the work is ramping up for country people, who talk to Kate Green and Paula Lester

Baby, it’s gold outside

Catriona Gray meets the artists capturing Nature’s beauty in gold

Silence is golden

Stop and listen to Nature’s voice, urges John Lewis-Stempel

Each year you bring to us delight

Hanging treasured decorations is all part of the magic. Matthew Dennison opens the bauble box

Look out! Look out! Jack Frost is about

Deborah Nicholls-Lee dares to unveil the mysterious figure

The Editor’s Christmas quiz

Take on our quizmaster — and, more importantly, your family and friends

Anyone for indoor cricket?

Melanie Cable-Alexander buckles up for riotous country-house-corridor games

No Risk, no reward

Harry Pearson takes over the world with the classic board game

Make ’em laugh

Jonathan Self chortles at British comedy

The Christmas Story: ‘Bring me flesh and bring me wine’

The spirit of Christmas works its magic on a curmudgeonly baronet in Kate Green’s tale

Interiors

Natural scents win for Arabella Youens

While shepherds watched their flocks

The sheep and its patient guardians have long delighted artists, finds Michael Prodger

Luxury

Knitting, diamonds and Giles Coren’s treats

It takes a village

Is the perfect rural habitation real, wonders John Lewis-Stempel

Don’t mince your words

Modern mince pies are but pale shadows of the past, believes Neil Buttery

You’re one hot roast potato

Who can resist a roastie? Not Emma Hughes, nor anyone else in their right mind

Kitchen garden cook

Melanie Johnson builds a gingerbread house

That’ll do, pig

Glazed and succulent, the Christmas ham is the king of the feast for Tom Parker Bowles

Lay, lady, lay

Give wine time to age, urges Harry Eyres

Crown Him with many crowns

John Lewis-Stempel gathers in the holly, once divine diadem, now a cow’s Christmas feast

The straw that broke the camel’s back

Labour’s family-farm tax will mean ruin for a beleaguered sector, says Minette Batters

 ‘Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional’

Sam Leith opens the well-worn covers of the childhood books we will always cherish

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

From frogs to rat armies, the natural world has inspired countless ballets. Laura Parker straps on her pointe shoes for the bunny hop

Highlights, delights and lowlights

Michael Billington awards his accolades to the stars — and the scourges — of the stage

Spectres of the feast

Operas with food and wine may be rousing, but there are perils, warns Henrietta Bredin

Unputdownable: the page turners of 2024

Country Life reviewers select their top books

Literarature: The Paris Review – Winter 2024-2025

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Paris Review Summer 2024 (September 10, 2024) — The new issue features:

Fredric Jameson on the Art of Criticism: “Ideological critique has to end up being a critique of the self. You can’t recognize an ideology unless, in some sense, you see it in yourself.”

Hanif Kureishi on the Art of Fiction: “When I was in hospital in Rome, having the experience of being a paralyzed man nearly dead, my only excitement was in the thought that I could write some of this shit down.”

Gerald Murnane on the Art of Fiction: “A fatal question—what are people reading these days? Never mind what people are reading these days. What should I be writing about is the fundamental question.”

Prose by Dan Bevacqua, Caoilinn Hughes, Silas Jones, Alec Niedenthal, Adania Shibli, and Abdulah Sidran.

Poetry by Sargon Boulus, Egill Skallagrímsson, Rachel Mannheimer, Simone White, and Hua Xi.

Art by Ann Craven, Ala Ebtekar, and Josh Smith; cover by Seth Becker.

News: Future Of Syria To Be Discussed At United Nations, Netayahu Trial

Monocle Radio Podcast (December 10, 2024): Following the collapse of the Assad regime, the UN Security Council meets to discuss what comes next in Syria.

Also in the programme: the UK’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, makes a historic visit to Cyprus; we meet the president and CEO of Future Caucus; and a flick through the new handbook launched by Monocle last night. Plus: Fernando Augusto Pacheco on 2025’s Golden Globes.