Category Archives: Reviews

Terrorism: Iran’s ‘Axis Of Resistance’ – Hezbollah, Hamas & Houthis Revealed

The Wall Street Journal (January 5, 2024) – Iran-backed groups connect to form a land bridge across the Middle East and form an alliance that Tehran calls the ‘Axis of Resistance.’ This land bridge can be used to transport equipment and personnel, but also allows for positions in Iraq and Syria to attack U.S. interests or threaten Israel closer to its borders.

Video timeline: 0:00 ‘Axis of Resistance’ 0:37 Iran’s allies 1:44 Iran’s history 3:22 U.S. in the Middle East 4:14 Attacks since Oct. 7

WSJ explains what to know about the alliance that includes Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

The New York Times Magazine – January 7, 2024

THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (January 5, 2024): The new issue features “Letting Naomi Die” – Treatment wasn’t helping her anorexia, so doctors allowed her to stop, no matter the consequences. But is a ‘palliative’ approach to mental illness really ethical?

Should Patients Be Allowed to Die From Anorexia?

A portrait of Naomi.

Treatment wasn’t helping her anorexia, so doctors allowed her to stop — no matter the consequences. But is a “palliative” approach to mental illness really ethical?

By Katie Engelhart

The doctors told Naomi that she could not leave the hospital. She was lying in a narrow bed at Denver Health Medical Center. Someone said something about a judge and a court order. Someone used the phrase “gravely disabled.” Naomi did not think she was gravely disabled. Still, she decided not to fight it. She could deny that she was mentally incompetent — but this would probably just be taken as proof of her mental incompetence. Of her lack of insight. She would, instead, “succumb to it.”

What If People Don’t Need to Care About Climate Change to Fix It?

A photo illustration of Hannah Ritchie.

By David Marchese 

“It seems like we’ve been battling climate change for decades and made no progress,” Dr. Hannah Ritchie says. “I want to push back on that.” Ritchie, a senior researcher in the Program on Global Development at the University of Oxford and deputy editor at the online publication Our World in Data, is the author of the upcoming book, “Not the End of the World.” In it, she argues that the flood of doom-laden stats and stories about climate change is obscuring our ability to imagine solutions to the crisis and envision a sustainable, livable future.

Research Preview: Science Magazine – January 5, 2024

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Science Magazine – December 21, 2023: The new issue features a carnivorous Nepenthes gracilis pitcher plant luring an ant into a precarious position under the roof-like trap lid.

Dopamine regulates attitude toward risk

Specific brain pathways can lower or raise the willingness of monkeys to take risks

Magellanic cloud may be two galaxies, not one

Rethink of familiar object may boost odds that its name, offensive to some, will be changed

Technology: How AI Is Changing Entertainment

The Economist (January 4, 2024) – A new wave of artificial intelligence is starting to transform the way the entertainment industry operates. Who will be the winners and losers?

Video timeline: 01:07 AI is changing the music business 04:09 How big data revolutionised entertainment industries 05:20 Can AI predict a film’s success? 09:26 How generative AI is creating new opportunities 12:36 What are the risks of generative AI?

The Economist Magazine – January 6, 2024 Preview

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The Economist Magazine (January 4, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The man supposed to stop Donald Trump is an unpopular 81-year-old; Israel-Hizbullah – Can war be avoided?; The stakes in Taiwan’s election; An interview with Volodymyr Zelensky; The surge in AI nationalism…

The man supposed to stop Donald Trump is an unpopular 81-year-old

In failing to look past Joe Biden, Democrats have shown cowardice and complacency

Binyamin Netanyahu is botching the war. Time to sack him

To be safe, Israel needs new leadership


Another war could break out on the Israel-Lebanon border

Israeli officials see Hizbullah as an unacceptable threat

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – January 5, 2024

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The Guardian Weekly (January 4, 2024) – The new issue features ‘Make or Break 2024’ – The biggest election year in history.

About 2 billion people have the opportunity to cast their ballots in polls that span the globe from the United States to Taiwan, and India to Mexico in 2024. The outcomes, as our analysts and correspondents explain in our big story, have implications for us all.

Washington bureau chief David Smith looks at the likely rerun of 2020’s Biden v Trump contest in November and explores what has changed and what has not in the US as the old adversaries square up. It is an almost foregone conclusion that Narendra Modi will be back for a third term as Indian prime minster, reports Hannah Ellis-Petersen from Delhi where analysts fear his victory will further imperil the country’s Muslim minority. And while Vladimir Putin will certainly continue as president in Russia, Pjotr Sauer explains why the man about to become fifth-time president might allow other candidates onto the ballot list. From Taiwan’s poll on 13 January to the 27-state European elections in June, how citizens vote will influence the geopolitical landscape for us all, while the conduct of campaigns will reveal how vulnerable democracies now are to misinformation and cyber interference from malign actors.

Research Preview: Nature Magazine January 4, 2024

Volume 625 Issue 7993

Nature Magazine – January 3, 2024: The latest issue cover features  an artist’s impression of a massive young star in the process of forming.

US nuclear-fusion lab enters new era: achieving ‘ignition’ over and over

NIF beamlines entering the lower hemisphere of the NIF Target Chamber, as seen from the ground floor of the Target Bay.

Researchers at the National Ignition Facility are consistently creating reactions that make more energy than they consume.

By Jeff Tollefson

In December 2022, after more than a decade of effort and frustration, scientists at the US National Ignition Facility (NIF) announced that they had set a world record by producing a fusion reaction that released more energy than it consumed — a phenomenon known as ignition. They have now proved that the feat was no accident by replicating it again and again, and the administration of US President Joe Biden is looking to build on this success by establishing a trio of US research centres to help advance the science.

DeepMind AI outdoes human mathematicians on unsolved problem

A player holds a hand of Set game cards over a green table.

Large language model improves on efforts to solve combinatorics problems inspired by the card game Set.

Davide Castelvecchi

The card game Set has long inspired mathematicians to create interesting problems.

Now, a technique based on large language models (LLMs) is showing that artificial intelligence (AI) can help mathematicians to generate new solutions.

Fine Art: The Burlington Magazine – January 2024

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The Burlington Magazine – January 3, 2024: The new issue features ‘The Golden Age of Avignon’ – Avignon as ‘New Rome’; Rubens and women; Tiepolo in New York; Gertrude Stein and Picasso, and more….

China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta

A vivid photograph of a lotus pond ushers visitors into this ambitious exhibition on the arts and culture of Jiangnan. Lying to the south of the Yangtze – its name literally means ‘south of the river’ – this part of China includes such major cities as Shanghai, Hangzhou and Suzhou. Curated by Clarissa von Spee, Chair of Asian Art and the James and Donna Reid Curator of Chinese Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA), this is the first exhibition outside China to present an encyclopaedic view of the cultural history of this historically affluent region. 

The Walpole Society

Ever since the Walpole Society was founded in London in 1911 ‘with the object of promoting the study of the history of British art’, The Burlington Magazine has taken a close interest in an organisation with aims and principles so close to our own: this is the sixth Editorial we have devoted to the subject. The first, written by the art historian August F. Jaccaci, who edited the Magazine’s ‘Art in America’ section, appeared in 1913 on the occasion of the publication of the first of the annual volumes that are the society’s raison d’être.

Classical Music: Top New Releases – January 2024

Brilliant Classics (January 3, 2024): New classical music from Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Liszt, Adriana, Shostakovich and more…

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Jan 5, 2024

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Times Literary Supplement (January 3, 2024): The latest issue features ‘The Lady Vanishes’ – Muireann Maguire on a revival of classic crime fiction; What next for Julian Assange; David Hockney’s drawings; Dreaming up 007; The science of belonging and more…