Category Archives: Reviews

Finance Preview: Barron’s Magazine – July 10, 2023

Magazine - Latest Issue - Barron's

BARRON’S MAGAZINE – JULY 10, 2023 ISSUE

Walmart Is Quietly Growing Into a Retail Tech Titan

Walmart Is Quietly Growing Into a Retail Tech Titan

The world’s biggest retailer stumbled in the early innings of the e-commerce revolution. Now that Walmart has found its footing, it’s poised for big profits.

Americans Have the Travel Bug, and They’re Going Abroad. What Stocks to Play.

Americans Have the Travel Bug, and They’re Going Abroad. What Stocks to Play.

Pent-up demand is fueling a surge in international travel. Cruise lines, select air carriers, and Hyatt Hotels offer ways to play the trend.3 min

Growth Is Back. Where to Invest Now.

Growth Is Back. Where to Invest Now.

Can the AI-driven rally in growth stock funds continue? Large-cap growth funds are already up 24% this year, but so are valuations.

Preview: New York Times Magazine – July 9, 2023

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THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (July 9, 2023) – In this week’s cover story, Sarah A. Topol reports on how the U.S. military continues to build up Guam and other Pacific territories — placing the burdens of imperial power on the nation’s most ignored and underrepresented citizens. Plus, an interview with the British writer-actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge, a profile of the winemaker Maggie Harrison and inside the D.N.C.’s primary problem.

The America That Americans Forget

Roy Gamboa, a member of Guam’s native CHamoru people and a Marine veteran.

As tensions with China mount, the U.S. military continues to build up Guam and other Pacific territories — placing the burdens of imperial power on the nation’s most ignored and underrepresented citizens.

Talk June 29, 2023

Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Great ‘Indiana Jones’ Adventure

Waller-Bridge, 37, is co-starring in the just-released “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” (This is after previously contributing to the screenplay for a film about another iconic character: the 2021 James Bond effort, “No Time to Die.”) Further out on the horizon, Waller-Bridge, who also created the spy-thriller series “Killing Eve,” is working on a show based on the “Tomb Raider” video game for Amazon Studios. (At the time of publication, though, that show’s progress is currently on hold because of the W.G.A. writers’ strike.) 

Maggie Harrison’s War on Wine

Maggie Harrison in a field, seen through some green plants, which partially obscure her face. The photo is in soft focus and has a yellow-green tint.

Her painstaking blends are dazzling diners and critics — and upending long-held notions about how winemaking is supposed to work.

Research Preview: Science Magazine – July 7, 2023

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Science Magazine – July 7, 2023 issue:

The star watcher

Amateur astronomer Koichi Itagaki is one of the most prolific supernova hunters of all time

Rare fossil implies deep roots for vertebrates

Half-billion-year-old tunicate from western Utah “looks like it died yesterday”

English Country Estates: A Tour Of Denham Place

Architectural Digest (July 6, 2023) – A tour of Denham Place, a 17th-century country estate situated just 30 minutes from central London. Built in 1688, this historic property is on the market for £75,000,000 and has just completed an extensive 8-year restoration.

An incredible 12 reception rooms, 12 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, and grounds inspired by Versailles, make this stately home palatial–and with past residents including the Bonaparte Imperial family, it is a house truly fit for royalty.

The house was constructed in 1688–1701 for Sir Roger Hill, and the architect was probably William Stanton. 

Culture: Burgundy Wine Cellars Of Beaune, France

FRANCE 24 (July 6, 2023) – Beaune is the wine capital of France’s Burgundy region. Above ground, the old fortified city is already beautiful. But the real treasure is hidden below the surface, down in the cellars. They contain two million bottles of wine, in a total of five kilometres of galleries, all linked together.

 One of the oldest cellars in Beaune has been occupied for four generations by the Maison Drouhin. It contains traces of the city’s ancient past. Meanwhile, the cellars of Maison Champy were once frequented by Louis Pasteur and Gustave Eiffel. The much more modern Jadot winery has an unexpected skylight.

AI Preview: Science Focus Magazine – July 2023 Issue

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BBC Science Focus Magazine (July 2023) – What our future with Artificial Intelligence really looks like, according to the experts; How to take control of AI before it’s too late, and more…

ChatGPT: Everything you need to know about OpenAI’s GPT-4 tool

© Carol Yepes

OpenAI is back in the headlines with news that it is updating its viral ChatGPT with a new version called GPT-4. But when will this be available, how does it work and can you use it?

AI art’s hidden echo chamber is about to implode. Here’s what that will look like

Artificial intelligence art generators train themselves on art pulled straight from the internet… but what happens when most of the art out there is now made by AI?

Sky Views: ‘Astronomy Photographer Of The Year’ Finalists (2023)

Royal Museums Greenwich (July 6, 2023) – See a selection of the incredible space images shortlisted in Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2023. 

Image of decayed diamond mining processing plant with the Milky Way stretching out in the sky behind it

Sperrgebiet by Vikas Chander

Bogenfels, Namib Desert, Namibia

Astronomy photograph of the Moon, lit up silver with lots of craters visible and light blue mare

Ball of Rock by Rich Addis 

Wallasey, Wirral, Merseyside, United Kingdom

Image showing WWI trenches at bottom lit up with lights, a line of trees in the distance, and a purple, blue and yellow sky behind with star trails making curved diagonal lines

Celestial Equator Above First World War Trench Memorial by Louis Leroux-Gere

Vimy, Pas-de-Calais, France

READ AND SEE MORE

Museum Reviews: Cézanne And Van Gogh’s Influence On The Rise Of Modern Art

The National Gallery (July 6, 2023) – The exhibition, ‘After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art’, celebrates the achievements of three giants of the era: Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin and follows the influences they had on younger generations of French artists, on their peers and on wider circles of artists across Europe in Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels and Vienna.

Explore a period of great upheaval when artists broke with established tradition and laid the foundations for the art of the 20th and the 21st centuries.

Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – July 7, 2023

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Times Literary Supplement (July 7, 2023): The national religion – NHS at seventy-five; The history of female combatants from ancient times to the present; The temptation for Romantic writers to tip into over-familiarity, and more…

You’re over-sharing, Mr Hazlitt

Portrait of William Hazlitt by William Bewick, 1825

The temptation for Romantic writers to tip into over-familiarity

By Corin Throsby

Authorship and Romantic readers by Lindsey Eckert

In times of uncertainty, hardship or illness, re-reading a favourite novel can be a source of immense comfort. Even when we read something new, elements of familiarity – in plot, character and theme – can make us feel that the words have sprung from our subconscious. Familiarity connects us to our past and gives a sense of belonging to a community of readers. It can turn fictional characters into friends, make authors feel like confidants and render imagined settings as reassuring as a childhood home.

Research Preview: Nature Magazine – July 6, 2023

Volume 619 Issue 7968

nature Magazine -July 6, 2023 issue: Shape shifters – DNA origami allows useful supramolecular structures to be created from templates. But the process has its limitations, with most structures confined to two configurations: folded or unfolded.

Fungi bacon and insect burgers: a guide to the proteins of the future

Stylised illustration showing a shop display of alternative protein products with signs saying 'New' and 'Try today'.

Humanity needs to eat less meat. Here are seven alternatives.

Would you eat a burger enriched with mealworms? Fake bacon sliced from a mass of fermented fungi? Milk proteins extruded by microbes? Maybe you already have. Dozens of companies are now banking on these alternatives to animal protein becoming a regular part of your diet.

Mini-antibodies given mighty powers can stave off influenza

Influenza A virus, TEM image.

Complexes formed from ‘nanobodies’ and an antiviral drug halt infection in its tracks.

A dynamic duo comprising an antiviral drug joined to an antibody fragment provides strong protection against the two main types of influenza that infect humans, according to research in mice.