A survey of cell types across tissues as part of the Human Cell Atlas, mapped with single-cell transcriptomics in three papers in this issue, lays the foundation for understanding how cellular composition and gene expression vary across the human body in health, and for understanding how genes act in disease.
Category Archives: Reviews
Nutrigenomics: How Diet Can Reprogram Our DNA
The burgeoning field of “nutrigenomics” claims that the food we eat can alter our genetics. Dietitians, scientists and lifestyle companies have all hopped on the bandwagon.
Nutrigenomics (also known as nutritional genomics) is broadly defined as the relationship between nutrients, diet, and gene expression. The launch of the Human Genome Project in the 1990s and the subsequent mapping of human DNA sequencing ushered in the ‘era of big science’, jump-starting the field of nutrigenomics that we know today.
Cover Previews: Nature Magazine – May 12, 2022
Nova explosions occur when a runaway thermonuclear reaction is triggered in a white dwarf that is accreting hydrogen from a companion star. The massive amount of energy released ultimately creates the bright light source that can be seen with a naked eye as a nova. But some of the energy has been predicted to be lost during the initial stages of the reaction as a flash of intense luminosity — a fireball phase — detectable as low-energy X-rays. In this week’s issue, Ole König and his colleagues present observations that corroborate this prediction. Using scans taken by the instrument eROSITA, the researchers identified a short, bright X-ray flash from the nova YZ Reticuli a few hours before it became visible in the optical spectrum. The cover shows an artist’s impression of the nova in the fireball phase.
Previews: New Scientist Magazine – May 14, 2022
New Scientist Magazine, May 14, 2022
COVER STORIES
- FEATURES Fascia: The long-overlooked tissue that shapes your health
- FEATURES The grand plan to create a periodic table of all animal intelligence
- FEATURES Have we been measuring the expansion of the universe wrong all along?
- NEWS Simple webcam test could show whether you lack a mind’s eye
- NEWS How quickly can you catch covid-19 again if you have already had it?
Science: Reviving Retinas, Floral Chocolates, First Life From RNA + Proteins
Reviving retinas to understand eyes
Research efforts to learn more about diseases of the human eye have been hampered as these organs degrade rapidly after death, and animal eyes are quite different to those from humans.
To address this, a team have developed a new method to revive retinas taken from donors shortly after their death. They hope this will provide tissue for new studies looking into the workings of the human eye and nervous system.
Research article: Abbas et al.
8:05 Research Highlights
A technique that simplifies chocolate making yields fragrant flavours, and 3D imaging reveals some of the largest-known Native American cave art.
Research Highlight: How to make a fruitier, more floral chocolate
Research Highlight: Cramped chamber hides some of North America’s biggest cave art
10:54 Did life emerge in an ‘RNA world’?
How did the earliest biochemical process evolve from Earth’s primordial soup? One popular theory is that life began in an ‘RNA world’ from which proteins and DNA evolved. However, this week a new paper suggests that a world composed of RNA alone is unlikely, and that life is more likely to have begun with molecules that were part RNA and part protein.
Research article: Müller et al.
News and Views: A possible path towards encoded protein synthesis on ancient Earth
17:52 Briefing Chat
We discuss some highlights from the Nature Briefing. This time, the ‘polarised sunglasses’ that helped astronomers identify an ultra-bright pulsar, and how a chemical in sunscreen becomes toxic to coral.
Nature: A ‘galaxy’ is unmasked as a pulsar — the brightest outside the Milky Way
Preview: Times Literary Supplement – May 13, 2022
Times Literary Supplement May 13, 2022 – Raphael: worn out by love, or work? | James Hall [reviews] Antonio Forcellino’s newly translated biography of the “most rounded, efficient and consistently accomplished of Renaissance artists”
Opinions: Saving The U.S. Supreme Court, Health Care Tech, Remote Work
A selection of three essential articles read aloud from the latest issue of The Economist. This week, how to save the supreme court from itself, how wearable technology promises to revolutionise health care (10:29) and our Bartleby columnist on why working from anywhere isn’t realistic (18:29).
Literary Interviews: ‘The Magnolia Palace’ Author Fiona Davis (Frick Museum)
Fiona Davis, author of THE MAGNOLIA PALACE, discusses art, history, and writing with Xavier F. Salomon, Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator at The Frick Collection.
They speak in the Fragonard room at Frick Madison, the temporary home of The Frick Collection.
About THE MAGNOLIA PALACE Fiona Davis, New York Times bestselling author of The Lions of Fifth Avenue, returns with a tantalizing novel about the secrets, betrayal, and murder within one of New York City’s most impressive Gilded Age mansions.
Get the book: https://bit.ly/3LEA7kU
The Magnolia Palace
An Instant New York Times Bestseller
A Book of the Month Pick • Apple Books’ Best Books of January • January LibraryReads Hall of Fame
Covers: World Literature Today – May/June 2022
World Literature Today Magazine to Launch Art-Inspired 400th Issue
The May/June issue of World Literature Today, the University of Oklahoma’s award-winning magazine of international literature and culture, will celebrate the magazine’s 400th issue. The edition, which will feature writers and visual artists, will be launched in Oklahoma City’s Paseo Arts District’s Studio Six, from 6-8 p.m., Friday, May 6.
The cover feature, “Muses,” showcases the work of writers, visual artists and their inspirations. The issue will contain essays, poems and creative nonfiction inspired by Rembrandt, Wassily Kandinsky, Andrew Wyeth, David Hockney, André Leon Talley, French artist Ghislaine Lejard, American artist Todd Anderson as well as Hong Kong street artists, plus an interview with novelist, journalist and artist Amitava Kumar, who is based in both India and the United States.
New English Travel Books: ‘Deepest Somerset’ (2022)
Deepest Somerset off the presses
THE third book in our series, Deepest Somerset, is on its way to you. It was printed at Blackmore in Shaftesbury on the last weekend in August, and is now at the bindery, where the cover, again featuring a wood engraving by Howard Phipps, will be joined to the pages.
Boomers Daily 