Category Archives: Reviews

Top New Science Podcasts: 3D Printer Advances, Gut Microbes Linked To Liver Disease (Nature Magazine)

Audio November 13, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Hear this week’s science news, with Nick Howe and Shamini Bundell. This week, a new 3D printer allows quick shifting between many materials, and understanding the link between gut microbes and liver disease.

In this episode:

00:46 A new dimension for 3D printers

A new nozzle lets a 3D printer switch between materials at a rapid rate, opening the door to a range of applications. Research Article: Skylar-Scott et al.; News and Views: How to print multi-material devices in one go

08:07 Research Highlights

The slippery secrets of ice, and cells wrapping up their nuclei. Research Highlight: Viscous water holds the secret to an ice skater’s smooth glide; Research Highlight: Super-thin layer of ‘bubble wrap’ cushions a cell’s nucleus

10:17 Linking bacteria to liver disease

Researchers have isolated a bacterial strain that appears to play an important role in alcoholic liver disease. Research paper: Duan et al.; News and Views: Microbial clues to a liver disease

17:10 News Chat

‘Megaconstellations’ of satellites concern astronomers, and a report on the gender gap in chemistry. News: SpaceX launch highlights threat to astronomy from ‘megaconstellations’; News: Huge study documents gender gap in chemistry publishing

Culinary Arts, Food, Reviews

Food Reviews: Seven Reasons, Washington DC Is Top New Restaurant In U.S. (Esquire Magazine)

November 13, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From an Esquire.com online article:

…the Latin American food and cocktails at Seven Reasons—a mountain of black rice topped with prawns and pork cheeks, a salad in which the summery tang of tomatoes has been concentrated into cubes of jelly, a platter of hamachi tiradito whose pink and green splashes of salmon roe and jalapeño could hang in an art gallery—serve up jubilation as a remedy for pain and color as a cure for the blues. Is there almost too much packed into each bite? No one’s complaining. More-is-more extravagance is what makes Seven Reasons a fiesta you never want to stop.

Ten minutes north of the White House and its sour, divisive rhetoric, immigrants are throwing a party. Unfettered joy radiates from inside Seven Reasons as you stand outside the front door, and once you enter and sit down, that joy makes itself known—proudly, defiantly—in the riot of flavors and hues that chef Enrique Limardo sends out from the kitchen. Limardo and several members of his team come from Venezuela, a country in the midst of collapse…

Arts & Literature, Books, Reviews

Book Review Podcasts: “In Love With George Eliot” By Kathy O’Shaughnessy (BBC)

November 13, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Kathy O’Shaughnessy talks to Mariella about her novel charting the life of George Eliot.

Who was the real George Eliot? In Love with George Eliot is a glorious debut novel which tells the compelling story of England’s greatest woman novelist as you’ve never read it before.

Marian Evans is a scandalous figure, living in sin with a married man, George Henry Lewes. She has shocked polite society, and women rarely deign to visit her. In secret, though, she has begun writing fiction under the pseudonym George Eliot. As Adam Bede’s fame grows, curiosity rises as to the identity of its mysterious writer. Gradually it becomes apparent that the moral genius Eliot is none other than the disgraced woman living with Lewes.

Website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07tf569

Arts & Literature, Music, Reviews

Animated Visual Essay: Songwriter “Leonard Cohen” Interview In Video By Joe Donaldson (2019)

Video November 13, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Direction, Design & Animation: Joe Donaldson

Original Music and Sound Design: Ambrose Yu
Executive Producer: Soo-Jeong Kang
Senior Producer: Yara Bishara
Senior Editor: Brian Redondo
Producer: Sara Joe Wolansky
Audio Engineer: Jill Du Boff

“I was recently commissioned by The New Yorker to direct, design, and animate a pilot series of three animated visual essays.

“I know there’s a spiritual aspect to everybody’s life, whether they want to cop to it or not,” he said at one point. “It’s there, you can feel it in people—there’s some recognition that there is a reality that they cannot penetrate but which influences their mood and activity. So that’s operating. . . . Sometimes it’s just, like, ‘You are losing too much weight, Leonard. You’re dying, but you don’t have to coöperate enthusiastically with the process.’ Force yourself to have a sandwich.”

Leonard Cohen (1934 – 2016)

The first film features the great Leonard Cohen as he reflects on death and preparing for the end. The initial interview, by David Remnick, was recorded at Cohen’s home in Los Angeles a month before he passed away.”

You can view the full article on The New Yorker here: newyorker.com/culture/video-dept/leonard-cohen-and-the-divine-voice

Home Design, Homes, Reviews

Future Of Housing: The “Escher” From New Frontier Tiny Homes

November 12, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

Chef’s Kitchen

The Escher kitchen, built for an actual chef, merges functionality and luxury. With a casual open floor plan, you’ll find guests tend to congregate near and compliment this room.

King Size Master Bedroom

Sleeping in the cantilevered loft feels like floating in mid-air. The King bed downstairs comes with a hydraulic lift revealing cleverly designed storage space. The loft can be upgraded with skylights.

Custom tile shower and Walk-In Closet

First class elbow room comes standard in this 4’x4’ tile shower trimmed in glass. The adjacent walk-in closet provides a wardrobe area for two.

Design, Reviews, Technology, Transportation

Trends In Transportation: The BST-Hypertek Electric, Carbon Fiber Motorcycle Is “The New Standard”

November 11, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a New Atlas online review:

Well, with this extraordinary electric bike, I think I finally understand what Terblanche has been trying to get at all these years, and I absolutely love it. Designed and built in partnership with South African carbon wheel specialists BST, meet the all-electric Hypertek.

There could be no better name for this thing and its unabashed, triumphant futuristicism. Every component and detail seems stripped back, technical, modular, functional. It’s like a Confederate jumped in a teleportation machine without realizing there was already a Dyson vacuum in there.

The Hypertek is built around the reasonably unglamorous DHX Hawk water-cooled PMS electric motor, presumably chosen for its compact size and high torque output of 120 Nm (88.5 lb-ft). BST claims a peak power of 80 kW (107 hp), but we can’t find any motor on the DHX website capable of such peaks – the company’s largest advertised Hawk motor makes 120 Nm but peaks at 55.3 kW (74 hp) and offers a continuous power of 34.5 kW (46.3 hp). So perhaps it’s a custom build.

Arts & Literature, Exhibitions, Reviews

Top Museum Exhibitions: “Caravaggio & Bernini” At The Kunst Historisches, Vienna (Thru Jan 19, 2020)

November 10, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a Hyperallergic online review:

Caravaggio & Bernini: The Discovery of Emotions features some of the artists’ greatest works, but also charts their influence on others. And that influence proved to be powerful and enduring. Caravaggistas spread across Europe like termites. And so we could call this exhibition a battle of the swaggerers, the pomp of a very eclectic brand of Viennese historicism facing off against the theatrical push and preen of two great Italians.

From almost the beginning, Caravaggio, that man who arrived in Rome in the 1590s, is completely outrageous. Whom did he think were his principal patrons? Churchmen, of course. Did they care that he depicted John the Baptist in an extraordinary painting, circa 1602, as a carefree, lascivious, curly-haired boy with the cheekiest of grins imaginable?

Health, Reviews, Studies

Cancer Studies: Vitamin D Limits Melanoma Growth By Boosting Effects Of Immunotherapy

November 9, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News release:

“But what’s really intriguing is that we can now see how vitamin D might help the immune system fight cancer. We know when the Wnt/beta-catenin pathway is active in melanoma, it can dampen down the immune response causing fewer immune cells to reach the inside of the tumor, where they could potentially fight the cancer better.

“Although vitamin D on its own won’t treat cancer, we could take insights from the way it works to boost the effects of immunotherapy, which uses the immune system to find and attack cancer cells.”

In melanoma patients, elevated serum levels of vitamin D appear to be helpful. Tumors are thinner. Outcomes are improved. But how, exactly, are these benefits realized? To answer this question, researchers at the University of Leeds scrutinized the interaction between vitamin D and the vitamin D receptor (VDR) on melanoma cells. The researchers, fully aware that vitamin D on its own won’t treat cancer, hoped to identify cell signaling pathways that could lead to new therapeutic strategies.

Culinary Arts, Reviews, Technology

Innovations In Cocktails: “Barsys Coaster” Weighs Ingredients, Guides Mixing With AI Smart App

November 9, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From a Yanko Design online review:

This is the Barsys Coaster, a smart coaster with a mini weighing-machine and an AI inside it that coaches you through the fine cocktail-mixing process. The coaster works with the Barsys app, which lets you select a recipe, while the coaster itself sits on a table with an empty glass above it. The app tells you how to build your cocktail, by telling you what to pour into your glass, while the coaster and its weight-sensor lets you know when to stop pouring.

The incredibly precise weight-sensor within the coaster can know exactly when you’ve poured the right amount of gin, or vodka, or orange juice, while the app itself then tells you to stop pouring and proceed to the next step. The result? Precisely crafted cocktails courtesy an AI bartender and your passion for drinking fine cocktails from the comfort of your own house as Netflix cues the next episode of whatever it is you’re watching!

Arts & Literature, Books, Reviews

Book Review Podcasts: “Antisocial” By Andrew Marantz, “No Stopping Us Now” By Gail Collins (NYT)

November 9, 2019 She Seeks Serene Leave a comment

From the New York Times Book Review:

“Antisocial,” the new book by Andrew Marantz, plainly states its subject in its subtitle: “Online Extremists, Techno-Utopians, and the Hijacking of the American Conversation.” In order to write it, Marantz immersed himself in corners of the internet most of us would go out of our way to avoid.

Gail Collins visits the podcast this week to discuss her new book, “No Stopping Us Now,” an eye-opening chronicle of older women’s journey to progress in the United States over the years. “It used to be, the whole vision of your life if you were a woman was that you got married, you had children and, once the children were grown, you were old — done,”

Collins says on the podcast this week. “That was the thing I was looking at: What counted as old, and then what did women do when they got to what was regarded as old? How did they use it, how did they fight it?”