Category Archives: Reviews

Reviews: ‘The Week In Art’

The Art Newspaper May 25, 2023: This week: the first ever museum show of Keith Haring’s work in Los Angeles. We talk to Sarah Loyer, the curator of Keith Haring: Art Is for Everybody at the Broad in Los Angeles. Alex Farquharson, the director of Tate Britain in London, has led the complete rehang of the museum’s collection, including a vastly expanded presence of women and artists of colour across 500 years of British art.

He tells us about the project. And this episode’s Work of the Week is The Room, Part 1 (1975) by the late San Francisco-born painter Joan Brown. The painting is part of the touring survey that opens this week at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, and Liz Park, the curator of the Pittsburgh show, tells us more about it.

Keith Haring: Art Is For Everybody, The Broad, Los Angeles, 27 May-8 October; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 11 November-17 March 2024; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 27 April-8 September 2024.The rehang of Tate Britain is open now.Joan Brown, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 27 May-24 September. Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California, 7 February–1 May 2024. Joan Brown: Facts & Fantasies, Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, until 17 June. 

Type 2 Diabetes: Benefits Of Insulin Resistance Diet

Cleveland Clinic (May 25, 2023) – What you eat matters. You may be able to prevent insulin resistance, which can lead to Type 2 diabetes by eating a well-balanced diet. This video shares 7 tips to help prevent or manage insulin resistance.

Chapters: 0:00 What is insulin resistance? 0:34 Pick low calorie foods 0:41 Lean meats and fish 0:53 Look for high fiber ingredients 1:04 Swap full fat for low-fat 1:20 Use olive or sesame oils 1:35 Choose whole grains 1:46 Consider a low-glycemic diet 1:50 Small changes over time

Insulin Resistance

Insulin resistance is a complex condition in which your body does not respond as it should to insulin, a hormone your pancreas makes that’s essential for regulating blood sugar levels. Several genetic and lifestyle factors can contribute to insulin resistance.

Research Preview: Science Magazine – May 26, 2023

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Science Magazine – May 26, 2023 issue: Tongues are thought to have evolved when vertebrates first moved onto land and could no longer rely on suction to ingest food. Since then, they have helped drive animal diversification by adopting functions as varied as pumping nectar, snagging prey, shaping speech, and, in the case of Australia’s northern blue-tongued skink (Tiliqua scincoides intermedia), startling enemies.

The COVID-19 virus mutated to outsmart key antibody treatments. Better ones are coming

illustration of an antibody bound to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein

As pandemic slows and COVID-19 funding dwindles, researchers worry companies won’t have incentives to bring improved antibodies to market.

TALES OF THE TONGUE

Since first evolving 350 million years ago, the tongue has taken myriad forms, unlocking new niches and boosting the diversity of life

A brightly colored chameleon with its long black tongue extended in the air to capture a black and yellow locust.

Twice, quarterback Patrick Mahomes has led the Kansas City Chiefs to victory in the Super Bowl, the pinnacle of U.S. football. Although most fans have their eyes on the ball as Mahomes prepares to throw, his tongue does something just as interesting.

Sri Lanka Views: The Rise Of Women ‘Tuk-Tuk’ Drivers

DW Documentary (May 25, 2023) – Amidst the traffic chaos of Sri Lanka: the popular auto-rickshaws, or tuk-tuks. They’re traditionally driven by men. But increasingly, you’ll see a woman at the wheel – and this film is about three of them: Anulawathi, Thushari and Jega. Anulawathi, Thushari and Jega all do the same job: they’re auto rickshaw drivers in Sri Lanka, three women in a sector traditionally dominated by men.

Besides being a popular mode of transport, the three-wheeled tuk-tuk also provides these three women with a reliable source of income. All three were left by their husbands and had to find a way to feed themselves and their children. They were forced to challenge societal norms. After all, in Sri Lanka, men are traditioanally seen as the providers. Male tuk-tuk drivers view their female colleagues as rivals. But unsurprisingly, female customers love them. Thushari lives in the capital Colombo. She is a longtime parent and works to support herself and her two daughters.

Anuwalathi works in Kandy. She lived abroad for a few years and saved up enough money to buy her own tuk-tuk. Jega is also a single parent. She lives with her son and niece in the tourist resort of Hikkaduwa. All three women earn a steady income from the tuk-tuk business, which brings them closer to their eventual goal – independence and freedom.

French Culture: A Family Run Restaurant’s ‘Bistro To Michelin Star’ Journey

FRANCE 24 (May 25, 2023) – In a small village deep in central France, the same family has run the “La Promenade” restaurant for four generations. The story began in 1960, when Lucienne created a small bistro. Then Jacky, the son, took over and won the first Michelin star in 1989.

Today, the grandson Fabrice watches over this mecca of French gastronomy, and now his son Clément is studying for his chef’s diploma. “La Promenade” is a moving family story, whose finest pages are perhaps yet to be written.

Previews: The Economist Magazine – May 27, 2023

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The Economist Magazine– May 27, 2023 issue: The race to become the Republican nominee for the presidential election in America next year is properly under way. And Donald Trump has a huge, perhaps insurmountable, lead. 

Ron DeSantis has little chance of beating Donald Trump

Hopes of depriving the former president of the Republican nomination are fading

Belatedly and nervously, the would-be assassins have been lining up. On May 22nd Tim Scott, a senator from South Carolina, became the latest Republican to announce a run for president. Greater fanfare accompanied the official declaration (on Twitter) on May 24th that Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is joining the race for the Republican nomination. He has been widely heralded as the candidate with the best chance of defeating the favourite, Donald Trump. But even as more plotters step forward, the chances of a successful coup to overthrow Mr Trump are growing slimmer by the day.

What would humans do in a world of super-AI?

A thought experiment based on economic principles

In “wall-e”, a film released in 2008, humans live in what could be described as a world of fully automated luxury communism. Artificially intelligent robots, which take wonderfully diverse forms, are responsible for all productive labour. People get fat, hover in armchairs and watch television. 

Hungary is becoming more important to China

Viktor Orban and Xi Jinping bond over their anti-Americanism

To ears accustomed to a swelling chorus of China-scepticism in the European Union, the language of Hungarian diplomats is striking. Not for them the common talk of European officials about the need to “de-risk” relations with China and to treat it as a “systemic rival”. Co-operation between Hungary and China presents “opportunities rather than risks”, said Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, in Beijing on May 15th. Wang Yi, China’s foreign-affairs overlord, told him that relations between the countries had entered their “best period in history”.

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – May 25, 2023

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nature Magazine – May 25, 2023 issue:  In this week’s issue, Wenzhu Liu and colleagues present a way to make foldable silicon wafers that can be used in flexible solar cells. The secret to success was to blunt the edges of the silicon wafers, thereby stopping them from undergoing brittle fracturing. As a result, the researchers were able to make 15-centimetre solar cells with a bending angle of more  than 360°.

Oldest known ‘blueprints’ aided human hunters 9,000 years ago

Prehistoric engravings depict vast hunting traps with extraordinary precision.

Photograph of a stone engraved with zig-zag lines.

The oldest blueprints ever found might have been used to prepare for large-scale hunts1.

Engraved lines on a stone in Jordan might depict landscape features near a large-scale hunting structure.

Travel & Culture: Secrets Of Mont-Saint-Michel

FRANCE 24 (May 24, 2023) – Located in France’s Normandy region, the Mont-Saint-Michel is one of the most iconic and photographed places in the country. Every year, the site attracts some 2.5 million visitors.

Built 1,000 years ago, the tidal island and its abbey, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1979, have stood the test of time and survived through the centuries. Our France 2 colleagues report on some of its secrets, with FRANCE 24’s Guillaume Gougeon.

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – May 26, 2023

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Times Literary Supplement (May 26, 2023) – Alan Jenkins on Martin Amis, Young Russian fascists, The Rossettis at Tate Britain, Writers at the Hay Festival, Seamus Perry on ‘Byron’s Voice’.

Taking life sentence by sentence

Martin Amis, a talent for our time By Alan Jenkins

Martin Amis, 1995

In the Foreword to The War Against Cliché: Essays and reviews 1971-2000, a career-spanning collection of his journalism (literary and other), Martin Amis recalled how, when they started out in the early 1970s, he and his friends and colleagues touchingly assumed that literary criticism was as essential to civilization as literature itself was. Furthermore, “the most fantastic thing about this cultural moment” was that, in the debate between the Two Cultures, Art vs Science, “Art seemed to be winning”.

Politics: The Guardian Weekly – May 26, 2023

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The Guardian Weekly (May 26, 2023) – Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s surprise turn at last weekend’s G7 meeting in Hiroshima was the climax of a round of shuttle diplomacy in which the Ukrainian president secured yet more funds and equipment from western nations. 

Patrick Wintour ponders the complex wider issues at stake for western leaders who realise that more constructive relations with the global south could also be the key to containing an increasingly belligerent China.

E-cigarettes have been seen as useful and less health-damaging devices for weaning smokers off tobacco. But there are growing international fears at the rise of disposable e-cigarettes, which are fuelling a boom in vaping among children. Michael Safi looks at how different countries are responding, from sales curbs to outright bans.