Times Literary Supplement @TheTLS December 2, 2022 issue features Craig Raine on Lucian Freud; @NessaCarey on genetic engineering; @AnaAliciaGarza on vagrancy; @lindseyhilsum on the sacking of the Kherson Art Museum; @irinibus on gluttony; poems by @ColeHenri and Hugo Williams – and more.
Greg Corrado – Ph.D., Head of Health AI, November 28, 2022:
Alongside licensing our AI technology, iCAD will also use Google Cloud’s secure, scalable infrastructure, giving them the ability to rapidly expand cloud-hosted solutions into new regions. By doing so, iCAD can scale access to AI-based tools in underserved regions where infrastructure challenges may constrain their ability to offer breast cancer screenings.
Breast cancer is one of the world’s most common cancers; thankfully, early detection can help save lives and improve outcomes among many who develop the disease. At Google Health we’re developing AI to improve the accuracy and expand the availability of breast cancer screenings. Over time, better screenings will improve health outcomes and reduce disparities for people around the world.
Today, we’re announcing a partnership with iCAD, a leader in medical technology and cancer detection, marking the first time we are licensing our mammography AI research model. iCAD will work toward validating and incorporating our mammography AI technology with its products for use in clinical practices with the goal of improving breast cancer detection and assessment of short-term personal cancer risk for the more than two million people globally diagnosed with breast cancer every year.
An inviting exploration of architecture across cultures and centuries by one of the field’s eminent authors
In this sweeping history, from the Stone Age to the present day, Witold Rybczynski shows how architectural ideals have been affected by technological, economic, and social changes—and by changes in taste. The host of examples ranges from places of worship such as Hagia Sophia and Brunelleschi’s Duomo to living spaces such as the Katsura Imperial Villa and the Alhambra, national icons such as the Lincoln Memorial and the Sydney Opera House, and skyscrapers such as the Seagram Building and Beijing’s CCTV headquarters. Rybczynski’s narrative emphasizes the ways that buildings across time and space are united by the human desire for order, meaning, and beauty.
TAKE A LOOK INSIDE THE BOOK
This is the story of architecture’s physical manifestation of the universal aspiration to celebrate, honor, and commemorate, and an exploration of the ways that each building is a unique product of patrons, architects, and builders. Firm in opinion, even-handed, and rooted in scholarship, this book will delight anyone interested in understanding the buildings they use, visit, and pass by each day.
READ A REVIEW
Correspondent Alina Cho talks with residents, and with “Inside the Dream Palace” author Sherill Tippins, about the Chelsea’s unique history; and with developer Sean MacPherson about his determination to approach the Hotel Chelsea’s restoration with reverence.
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, Europe’s crisis of energy and geopolitics, how crypto goes to zero (10:19) and the consequences of America’s success against organised crime (16:32).
Britain, according to this damning book, is a land of dirty money. It has become the country of choice for dictators wanting to hide their cash, and oligarchs wishing to launder their reputations. Yet instead of waging war on this illicit finance, we’re helping it to propagate. Our national debasement is a sordid story, but Oliver Bullough canters through it with wit and such a colourful set of case studies that it is at least a little easier to stomach. His account begins with the Suez crisis in 1956, which Bullough pinpoints as the moment when Britain’s imperial power crumbled and the nation searched for a new role in the world. The job we chose? Playing Jeeves to kleptocrats. Since the Brexit vote there has been a lengthy debate about what kind of country Britain should strive to be; Bullough argues convincingly that we haven’t spent enough time scrutinising what it has already become. Ros Urwin
Profile, £20
Buy a copy of Butler to the World here
Nouriel Roubini is not known as “Dr Doom” for nothing, and this book from the economist who predicted the 2008 financial crisis is a bleak look at some of the horrible threats facing our survival on Earth, from economic collapse to a new cold war and the rise of artificial intelligence. But it is also an important wake-up call to how fragile modern civilisation is. Roubini lucidly lays out the challenges we face. Maybe save reading this until after the festive period. TK
John Murray, £20
Buy a copy of Megathreats here
In this epic, deeply researched history of oil, Keith Fisher, who spent 15 years on the book, takes us from the Byzantine era to the US oil boom of the 19th century and the rise of barons such as John D Rockfeller, and ends with the First World War. He unsparingly shows what a great but terrible industry oil exploration has been. No one comes out well, but the brutality involved in clearing indigenous communities to open up areas for exploitation are harrowing, especially the cruelty from what would become Royal Dutch Shell. TK
Allen Lane, £35
Buy a copy of A Pipeline Runs Through It here
 Illustration by Eleanor Taylor |
New York Times Book Review – November 27, 2022:
A new biography by Brigitta Olubas is the first to examine the life of the Australian novelist celebrated for her refined poetic fiction and acute moral vision.
Elysa Gardner’s “Magic to Do” goes backstage at Bob Fosse and Stephen Schwartz’s 1972 musical about a lost prince.
Juan Villoro, who spent over two decades perfecting one book about Mexico City, recommends reading on the city he loves. “Mexico is too complex,” a visitor said. “It needs to be read.”
This week: as the exhibition Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia opens at the Kling & Bang gallery in Reykjavik, Ben Luke talks to Masha Alekhina, one of the founding members of Pussy Riot, and the artist Ragnar Kjartansson, one of the co-curators of the show.
As protests continue across Iran, Aimee Dawson, The Art Newspaper’s acting digital editor, speaks to Shirin Neshat, the artist whose work expressing solidarity with women in Iran was recently installed outside the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin.
And this episode’s Work of the Week is by the Puerto Rican artist Gabriella Torres-Ferrer. Their 2018 sculpture—called Untitled (Value Your American Lie)—is part of a major new show at the Whitney Museum in New York, exploring art in Puerto Rico in the five years since the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Velvet Terrorism: Pussy Riot’s Russia, Kling & Bang, Reykjavik, until 15 January 2023. Pussy Riot: Riot Days, National Theatre of Iceland, Reykjavik, 25 November. Proceeds from the concert and the exhibition go to supporting Ukraine. You can hear an in-depth interview with Ragnar Kjartansson from 2020 on our sister podcast A brush with… on the usual podcast platforms.No existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, until 23 Apr 2023.
The successful use of engineered white blood cells (cells that are removed from the human body, modified with receptors that allow them to recognize cancer cells, and then returned to the body) to fight and eliminate tumor cells has frequently been called revolutionary and has even allowed researchers the rare opportunity to refer to a cure for certain cancers.
Reforestation has become a global priority but evidence on what works is still scant
Reference genomes used to direct the gene editor fail to account for human diversity in those of African descent
Meta’s algorithm tackles both language and strategy in a classic board game that involves negotiationNASA mulls end for long-lived climate sentinels
Drifting satellites could still yield insights into wildfires and storms, researchers argue
This will weaken it and threaten its global position
Hollywood is suffering from the brutal economics of streaming
Europe should let them do their jobs
Boomers Daily 