Uploaded April 29, 2023: An epic journey in Antarctica to the South Pole and to view Emperor Penguins with Andrew Macdonald, an award-winning Scottish photographer who spends most of his time in Africa.
World Economic Forum (April 29, 2023) – This week’s top stories of the week include:
0:15 Germany tackles skill gap with on-job training – Jakob Kasperidus joined wind power firm SL Naturenergie 2 years ago despite having no experience in the field. Previously, he managed an organic food shop. Now, he’s training to become a senior project developer as he works. “The first months were not that easy. It has to be said that we actually had quite a nice concept. That is, we had former or senior project developers who have been in the profession for some time now, who were always assigned a tandem junior project developer. That means I’ve had a mentor, if you will, for 2 or 2.5 years now, who then trained me bit by bit, so to speak.”
2:24 New documentary explores endometriosis – This director has endometriosis, along with millions of women. She made a movie about it. Endometriosis is a condition where cells similar to the uterus lining grow outside of the uterus. It causes severe, life-limiting pelvic pain and affects 190 million women of reproductive age globally. That’s 1 in 9 women. Yet many struggle to get their condition recognized and treated.
5:08 Scientists test honey for antibiotic potential – Honey is a traditional remedy for wound-healing due to its antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory properties. Now, scientists at Cardiff University are going back to this ancient cure to search for the next wave of bacteria-fighting medicine. The honey works as a ‘drug discovery tool’. Researchers test samples of honey for antibacterial compounds, then follow them back, using technology, to the plant species the bees visited. Many of these plants would otherwise be dismissed as weeds.
6: 32 Student designs plastic windows for Ukraine – The plastic windows can be built in just 15 minutes at a cost of €13.60 per square metre. The windows combine 4 layers of polythene sheeting with PVC piping and an ‘insulating noodle’ to create an immediate triple-glazed window which lets in enough light to live by. Millions of Ukrainians are living in bomb-damaged homes in a country where temperatures can drop to -20°C. The plastic windows were designed by Cambridge student Harry Blakiston Houston who took a break from his biotechnology PhD to start an NGO, Insulate Ukraine.
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Tourist Channel (April 29, 2023) – Located in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region of south eastern France, Fayence is midway between the mountains and the sea. Perched on the side of a hill, it overlooks the plain between the southern Alps and the Esterel massif which borders the coast between Cannes and Saint Raphael.
A fine example of traditional Provençal architecture, Fayence lies on the D562 road between Draguignan and Grasse, and is a gateway for visitors wishing to explore the surrounding area. North of the town, the D563 road leads through oak forested hills to Mons and beyond to the Route Napoléon which links Nice to Grenoble through the Alps.
Fayence has long been a secret destination for tourists driving towards the interior countryside of the Var with its deep gorges, rocky outcrops, vineyards, fields of lavender and olive groves along the way. It is an unmissable stop for the lovers of historical towns and relaxing landscapes characteristic of Provence. The long summers are warm averaging around 25C and dropping to a mild 10C from December until February.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.Credit…Michal Chelbin for The New York Times
School closures and culture wars turned classrooms into battlegrounds — and made the head of one of the country’s largest teachers’ unions a lightning rod for criticism.
Monocle on Saturday, April 29, 2023: The weekend’s biggest discussion topics with Georgina Godwin. Robin Lustig reviews the papers, Andrew Mueller recaps the week and Monocle’s Washington correspondent, Christopher Cermak, brings us stories from the Ukrainian National Museum of Chicago. Plus: a look ahead at this year’s Hay Festival.
Lucas T. Jahn Films (April 29, 2023) – From sweeping sand dunes to desolate highways of emptiness, bustling cities, and snow-covered peaks, we explored Morocco from north to south and east to west. Driving more than 10,000 km in eight weeks, our roadtrip included many unforgettable adventures.
Watch as we explore remote landscapes, climb high peaks, battle breath-taking dust-topias (double pun, yeah!), and navigate the hectic bustle of Morocco’s major cities.
The U.S. Congress began imposing debt limits in 1776. When the Continental Congress authorized its very first loan from France, it instructed U.S. commissioners to borrow a “sum not exceeding two million sterling.” Congress continued to permit the Treasury to borrow only up to bond-by-bond specific limits until 1917. Prior to then, U.S. Treasury secretaries actually operated under multiple debt limits, authorized bond by authorized bond. The single, aggregate debt limit we’re more familiar with today was first adopted by the U.S. in 1939.
The consumer health company features a range of leading brands, a relatively cheap valuation, a solid balance sheet, consistent earnings, and a healthy dividend yield. It’s no tech unicorn, a good thing in 2023.
The Federal Reserve released hundreds of pages documenting how bank supervision and regulation failed to prevent the lender’s collapse. The F.D.I.C. released a separate report on Signature Bank.
When it had a Democratic majority last year, the North Carolina Supreme Court voided the state’s legislative and congressional maps as illegal gerrymanders. Now the court has a Republican majority, and says the opposite.
Sotheby’s (April 28, 2023) –Looking for some inspiration for your next museum visit? This month, we’re taking a tour of six of the world’s most exciting and innovative museum exhibitions with Tim Marlow, Director of the Design Museum, London.
Doris Salcedo – Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, 21 May–17 September 2023 – Salcedo is a Colombian-born artist, whose central subject is human trauma and tragedy. Though much of her work emanates from the violent conflict over the last three decades in her native land, its resonance is universal. Doris Salcedo presents eight major series of works from across her career – from untitled pieces of wooden furniture filled with concrete to the remarkable Palimpsest in which the names of over 300 refugees and migrants who died at sea quite literally weep before our eyes.
Vincent van Gogh 2023 marks the 170th anniversary of Vincent van Gogh. Three exhibitions opening this month look set to enhance our understanding of the great Dutch painter:
Van Gogh and the Avant Garde The Art Institute of Chicago 14 May–4 September 2023 – Van Gogh and the Avant Garde takes the modern landscape as its central subject and looks at how the artist – along with Seurat, Signac and others – turned his attention from urban Parisian life to wrestling with the surrounding countryside with a formal inventiveness that set the tone for the development of Modernism.
Van Gogh’s Cypresses The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 22 May–27 August 2023 – From the religious connotation of trees in graveyards to their role as the backdrop of his incarceration at the asylum in Saint-Remy, the artist’s flame-like evergreens will be presented with all their evocative resonance in Van Gogh’s Cypresses,
Van Gogh in Auvers. His Final Months Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam 12 May–3 September 2023 – The unsurpassable Van Gogh Museum will celebrate its own 50th anniversary with Van Gogh in Auvers. His Final Months – an exhibition delving into the tremendously productive final period of his life, in which he made several of his most renowned masterpieces.
The New York Times Book Review(April 30, 2023): On the cover this week – Ned Blackhawk’s “The Rediscovery of America,” a sweeping, important, revisionist work of American history that places Native Americans front and center. Illustrating it is “Les Castors du Roi,” a 2011 painting by Kent Monkman, a Cree artist in Canada’s Dish With One Spoon Territory.
Paul Theroux, the quintessential travel writer, has also enshrined his Massachusetts roots in his writing. Here are his recommendations for those who come to visit.
My father, like many passionate readers, was a literary pilgrim in his native Massachusetts, a state rich in destinations, hallowed by many of the greatest writers in the language. “Look, Paulie, this is the House of the Seven Gables — go on, count them!”
A woman consults a book at the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan.Credit…Ángel Franco/The New York Times
In “All the Knowledge in the World,” Simon Garfield recounts the history of the encyclopedia — a tale of ambitious effort, numerous errors and lots of paper.
The scholar Christina Sharpe’s new book comprises memories, observations, artifacts and artworks — fragments attesting to the persistence of prejudice while allowing glimpses of something like hope.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious