Category Archives: Reviews

Research Preview: Science Magazine – Sept 15, 2023

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Science Magazine – September 15, 2023: Blue jays, similar to other corvid songbirds, are known for their impressive cognitive abilities, presumably due to their relatively large brains. 

Mars Sample Return risks consuming NASA science

Forthcoming cost estimate for budget-busting mission could lead to strict caps from Congress

Iran prepares to erect a digital wall

Researchers feel increasingly isolated as government moves to restrict internet access

Views: ‘Midnight Movers’ – French-American Painter Jules De Balincourt’s Art

Pace Gallery (September 14, 2023) – From his studio in Brooklyn, New York, Jules de Balincourt discusses his new suite of paintings on view as part of “Midnight Movers,” his debut exhibition with our gallery in New York and his first solo show in the city in a decade.

Working spontaneously, de Balincourt develops his expressive paintings through an improvisational approach that borders on abstraction. In this new interview, the artist dissects his process and the ways that he explores the natural world, globalization, technology, and psychology in his works.

To learn more about this exhibition, visit: https://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitio…

To learn more about Jules de Balincourt, visit: https://www.pacegallery.com/artists/j…

Health: ‘Stress Exercise’ That Increases Longevity

Daniela Hernandez | WSJ (September 14, 2023) – Research shows that moderate amounts of physical stress can help your body stay healthier for longer.

Video timeline: 0:00 Stress exercise 0:38 Baseline longevity test 2:41 Training 3:17 The results 4:59 What can you do about it?

That’s why longevity hacks, like intermittent fasting and ice baths, are blowing up on social media. I put myself through a strenuous 10-day workout plan to learn why and how the most active form of stress–exercise–is actually your best bet for a longer, healthier life.

Arts & Literature: Kenyon Review – Autumn 2023

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Kenyon Review – Autumn 2023: The new issue includes the winner and runners-up for the Patricia Grodd Poetry Prize for Young Writers, selected by Ruth Awad, and a Food-themed folio, with poetry by sam saxInga Lea Schmidt, and Holly Zhou; fiction by Rebecca AckermannElvis Bego, and Douglas Silver; nonfiction by Katie Culligan and Erica N. Cardwell; and much more. Luminous Gender Vessel, a folio guest-edited by Gabrielle Calvocoressi and Melissa Faliveno, features work by Krys Malcolm BelcKB BrookinsAlexis Pauline GumbsCatherine Kim, and many others. The cover art is by Joanna Anos.

The New York Review Of Books – October 5, 2023

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The New York Review of Books (October 5, 2023) – The new issue features Jennifer Wilson on Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s unsettlingly funny tales of domestic un-bliss, Tim Judah on the new normal in Ukraine, Daniel M. Lavery on Jacques Pépin, E. Tammy Kim on the 1941 Disney animators’ strike, Christopher Benfey on John Constable, Bill McKibben on a planet smothered in asphalt, Lynn Hunt on the revolutions of 1848, Noah Feldman on the Supreme Court’s conservative bloc, A.E. Stallings on Simonides, poems by Devin Johnston and Claire DeVoogd, and much more.

Mother Russia

In Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s latest novel, Kidnapped, Soviet bureaucracy is made all the messier by maternal desperation.

Jennifer Wilson

Kidnapped: A Story in Crimes by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya, translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz

Some months ago I was having dinner with a writer from Moscow. I told him I was thinking of reviewing a new translation of Ludmilla Petrushevskaya’s Kidnapped, a Bollywood-inspired novella that pays homage to the Soviets’ love of Indian cinema. “Don’t do it,” he—a friend of hers—warned me. “If she doesn’t like what you write, she will turn you into a character in one of her stories—the stupid girl in New York who doesn’t know anything.” Being a longtime admirer of Petrushevskaya, I wasn’t too worried: realism is not her thing.

Ukraine’s New Normal

Market Square, Lviv, Ukraine

Away from the front, life appears to be the same, but the country has undergone profound changes.

Tim Judah

On August 8 I went to the Jellyfish Museum in Kyiv. During my previous visits to the city, it had been closed because of the war. Now it has reopened. In the gloom the fantastical creatures drifted about in their tanks while couples, friends, and families drifted about happily looking at them. In Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine close to the Russian border, the Half an Hour café, where I wrote for a couple of days before Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, has also just reopened.

Sailing Yachts: A Tour Of The 155’ Schooner ‘Gweilo’

Fraser Yachts Films (September 14, 2023) – Built in 2009 by the renowned Mengi Yay shipyard, GWEILO is a 47M/155’ luxury sailing schooner that undergone extensive refits in 2021/2022. With sleek lines and a distinctive Dykstra exterior design, GWEILO is crafted from a laminate wood construction.

With a beam of 8.35m and a draft of 4.7m, she boasts a generous volume of 157GT, providing ample space for relaxation and entertainment. Fully RINA LY2 commercially compliant, she is safe, fast, and possesses the proven capability to navigate the world’s most enchanting seas. GWEILO gracefully cruises at 11 knots, with a maximum speed of 16 knots thanks to her Caterpillar 3406E engine delivering 558hp.

Designed for both performance and comfort, GWEILO offers luxurious accommodation for up to 8 guests across 3 exquisitely appointed ensuite staterooms. This stunning 2009 Mengi Yay sailing schooner has been fabulously maintained. Impeccably cared for, she stands in superb condition, eagerly awaiting her next passionate owner to create unforgettable memories.

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Sept 14, 2023

Volume 621 Issue 7978

nature Magazine – September 14, 2023:  In this week’s issue, 193 countries agreed to work towards 17 goals aimed at improving the lives of people around the world. From eliminating poverty and reducing hunger to tackling global warming and taking care of biodiversity, the Sustainable Development Goals have since taken their place in corporate plans and government policy.

An ‘alien meteorite’ probably didn’t slam into Earth — how will we know if one does?

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured comet 2I/Borisov as a blue glow in dark space.

Nature looks at the detective work required to confirm a controversial claim of finding interstellar debris.

A research team made headlines last week when it claimed to have scooped up from the sea floor fragments of a meteorite that came from beyond our Solar System1. Finding such an interstellar sample on Earth would be exciting because it might shed light on how planets and stars beyond our own form. But a number of scientists say that the evidence that the material came from another planetary system is not convincing so far.

AI detects eye disease and risk of Parkinson’s from retinal images
Researchers have developed a model trained similarly to ChatGPT that can be adapted to evaluate multiple health conditions.
Mariana Lenharo
Ancient-human fossils sent to space: scientists slam ‘publicity stunt’
The decision to send hominin bones on a commercial spaceflight has raised eyebrows among human-evolution researchers.
Ewen Callaway

The Good Life France Magazine – Autumn 2023

The Good Life France Magazine Autumn 2023 - The Good Life France

The Good Life France Magazine – Autumn 2023: The latest issue features A real-life sleeping beauty castle at Chateau de Gudanes, the historic city of Rouen, and highlights of Saint Malo, Brittany, Breton and Provence…

READ DIGITAL MAGAZINE ISSUE

Preview: London Review Of Books – Sept 21, 2023

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London Review of Books (LRB) – September 21, 2023: The new issue features John Lanchester on statistics, William Davies on Weber, nihilism and universities @dlbirch1 on hate mail, Ferdinand Mount on Henry III Clair Wills on Shirley Hazzard and a cover by Alexander Gorlizki.

Get a rabbit

Making It Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the Early People's Republic  of China (Histories of Economic Life, 10): Ghosh, Arunabh: 9780691179476:  Amazon.com: Books

By John Lanchester

Making It Count: Statistics and Statecraft in the Early People’s Republic of China (Histories of Economic Life, 10) by Arunabh Ghosh

At a dinner​ with the American ambassador in 2007, Li Keqiang, future premier of China, said that when he wanted to know what was happening to the country’s economy, he looked at the numbers for electricity use, rail cargo and bank lending. There was no point using the official GDP statistics, Li said, because they are ‘man-made’. That remark, which we know about thanks to WikiLeaks, is fascinating for two reasons. First, because it shows a sly, subtle, worldly humour – a rare glimpse of the sort of thing Chinese Communist Party leaders say in private. Second, because it’s true. A whole strand in contemporary thinking about the production of knowledge is summed up there: data and statistics, all of them, are man-made.

Stay away from politics

By William Davies

Nihilistic Times: Thinking with Max Weber 
by Wendy Brown.

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – Sept 15, 2023

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The Guardian Weekly (September15, 2023) The issue features  Amy Hawkins looking under the lid of China’s economy and asks if it has peaked?

Desperate searches for survivors continued in Morocco’s Atlas mountains after last Friday’s 6.8-magnitude earthquake, which killed thousands of people. Peter Beaumont reports from remote villages devastated by the country’s deadliest quake in six decades.

A worse disaster still appeared to be unfolding further along the north African coast in Libya, where up to 10,000 people were feared missing after flooding caused by the collapse of two dams. Details were only just emerging at the time of the Weekly going to press on Tuesday, but you can find the latest updates here.

First there were the bewildering DNA test results, then the long-forgotten fertility blog. Jenny Kleeman tells the remarkable tale of a discovery that would change the lives of two American families for ever.

Also in Features is American author Elif Batuman’s entertaining account of what happened when she asked the AI chatbot ChatGPT for assistance with a quote from Proust, leading her down a digital rabbit hole she never could have foreseen.