London Review Of Books – September 26, 2024 Preview
Category Archives: Reviews
Research Preview: Science Magazine – Sept. 20, 2024
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Claim of seafloor ‘dark oxygen’ faces doubts
Mining companies and others skeptical that metallic nodules electrically split seawater
Ice skater
Beneath Europa’s icy crust is a salty ocean, perhaps the best place in the Solar System to look for life. A NASA spacecraft will soon set off to probe the jovian moon
Hot and cold Earth through time
Reconstructing ancient Earth’s temperature reveals a global climate regulation system
Politics: The Guardian Weekly-September 20, 2024
The Guardian Weekly (September 12, 2024) – The new issue features ‘The Hunt For Yahya Sinwar’ – Julian Borger On Israel’s Elusive Prime Target…
The last sighting of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who is widely accused of unleashing the Gaza war, was from a retrieved Hamas security video that was apparently recorded three days after the 7 October attack on Israel.
Since then an estimated 41,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in a furious and devastating Israeli bombing response. Yet the prime target Sinwar has remained at large and apparently unscathed.
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Spotlight | Another apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump
Violence and instability have become a feature, not a bug, of US political life, writes Washington DC bureau chief David Smith
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Environment | Darién Gap migration rush creates a pollution crisis
Isolated communities on the Colombia-Panama border are sounding the alarm over poisoned rivers and cultural erosion after a surge in migrants crossing their ancestral lands, finds Luke Taylor
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Feature | The age of rage
Anger has come to def ine the public mood – felt in the posts of social media warriors and harnessed by populist agitators. Psychoanalyst Josh Cohen asks why are we so mad, and how can we navigate to calmer waters
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Opinion | The return of border checks in Germany
The German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s border clampdown threatens the entire European project, argues Maurice Stierl – no wonder the continent’s rightwing populists are cheering
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Culture | Michael Kiwanuka on faith, family and fulfilment
The Mercury prize-winning musician explains to Alexis Petridis how he went from being a ‘slight weirdo’ to wowing Glastonbury – and why he thinks more people are turning to religion
Technology Quarterly: ‘Chipmaking & AI’ (Fall 2024)
Silicon returns to Silicon Valley
AI has returned chipmaking to the heart of computer technology, says Shailesh Chitnis
The semiconductor industry faces its biggest technical challenge yet
Node names do not reflect actual transistor sizes
How to build more powerful chips without frying the data centre
AI has propelled chip architecture towards a tighter bond with software
Researchers are looking beyond digital computing
The end of Moore’s law will not slow the pace of change
The Economist Magazine – September 21, 2024 Preview
The breakthrough AI needs
A race is on to push artificial intelligence beyond today’s limits
Let Ukraine hit military targets in Russia with American missiles
Hitting back at the forces blasting Ukrainian cities is legal and proportionate
Saving Britain’s universities
Domestic students have been paying less in real terms every year
How the world’s poor stopped catching up
Progress stalled around 2015. To restart it, liberalise
Who’s winning in Pennsylvania?
A flood of money, advertising and consultants have left the race for the state a virtual tie
Peak woke: the numbers
Our statistical analysis finds that woke opinions and practices are on the decline
Research Preview: Nature Magazine – Sept. 19, 2024
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Brain region boosts avoidance of unpleasantness and pain — in mice
Discovery could help to identify ways to prevent relapse into opioid usage.
The Amazon’s gargantuan gardeners: manatees
The aquatic mammals disperse seeds of their favourite foods as they migrate, according to a serendipitous study of their poo.
Plagued by mosquitoes? Try some bite-blocking fabrics
Scientists create textiles with just the right weave and yarn to keep biting insects at bay.
Islands are rich with languages spoken nowhere else
Extremely remote islands are more likely than less isolated ones to have a high number of endemic languages.
Arts/Books: Times Literary Supplement – Sept. 20, 2024
Times Literary Supplement (September 18, 2024): The latest issue features ‘Autumn Fiction’ – Rachel Kushner, Olga Tokarczuk, László Krasznahorkai and Sally Rooney; Craig Brown on The Queen; A very Yorkshire horror; China’s Britain complex and The Looting of America…
Science Focus Magazine – October 2024 Preview
Secrets of the Pyramids
The technical knowledge of Egyptian architects once again exceeds expectations. Was Egypt’s oldest pyramid, the Step Pyramid of Djoser, built using some seriously high-tech kit? And what’s with the huge, unexplained cavity that’s been discovered in the Great Pyramid of Giza?
Living fossils
Meet the creatures for whom time has almost stood still. These animals give us a glimpse into what life was like millions of years ago, and show us just how resilient some groups have been to the calamitous events that have consigned others – such as the dinosaurs – to extinction.
A mysterious UFO
There’s a mysterious object hurtling at one million miles per hour across the Milky Way. It’s moving so fast that it could exit the Milky Way entirely – and scientists are still trying to figure out what it is. Not quite a planet and not quite a star, so what is it?
Proba-3
The Proba-3 mission aims to unravel the mysteries of the Sun’s atmosphere by creating artificial eclipses on demand. But achieving this feat means teaching two spacecraft to perform a complicated dance with an unprecedented level of precision. If the mission is successful, scientists will be able to study the Sun’s corona in unprecedented detail, ushering in a new era for space observation.
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Impostor syndrome: Ever feel like you’re an impostor, who’s bluffing their way through life? You’re not alone. Even the world’s most brilliant minds suffer from the fear of being ‘found out’. But what causes impostor syndrome? And more importantly, how can you overcome it?
Q&A: Boost your general knowledge! This issue: How do I break free of blame culture? How often should I change my toothbrush? How are identical twins created? Did dinosaurs have fleas? Why does my computer screen look so weird when I take a picture of it? What’s the smelliest animal? And more.
Sleep gadgets: A bad night’s sleep can follow you for days, making you tired and grumpy. Our tech experts have rounded up the best gadgets to help perfect your sleep routine and make the most of your shut-eye.
Generative AI: Speeding Up Amazon Package Delivery
Chapters: 2:14 Two-day to same-day 5:51 Robot revolution 9:18 Predicting orders 12:11 Routes and personalization
CNBC got an exclusive look at Amazon’s use of generative AI to optimize delivery routes, make more intelligent warehouse robots, and better predict where to stock new items.
Country Life Magazine – September 18, 2024 Issue
Country Life Magazine (September 17, 2024): The latest issue features…
The legacy
Amie Elizabeth White hails king of cutlery Harry Brearley, whose stainless-steel invention was — like himself — ‘made in Sheffield’
Country Life’s little-known gems of the Cotswolds
Jane Wheatley swerves the honeypots to share some of the region’s lesser-known places to eat, shop, stay or unwind
Dem bones, dem bones
The world’s first named dinosaur was found in the beautiful Oxfordshire village of Stonesfield. Ben Lerwill meets the Megalosaurus
A taste of the exotic
From coatimundis in Cumbria to scorpions in Kent, Victoria Marston introduces some of Britain’s most exotic residents
One bray at a time
The stoic and devoted donkey is often misunderstood, but it is capable of melting the hardest of hearts, as Katy Birchall learns
Marking time in the Cotswolds
Penny Churchill showcases the best country houses for sale in this sought-after region
Out of the ordinary
Annunciata Elwes scours the Cotswolds property market for something a little different
Geraldine Collinge’s favourite painting
The art-gallery director chooses a spectacular, nightmarish work
Revealing the Roman Cotswolds
Clive Aslet investigates the role of antiquarian Samuel Lysons in recording the excavation of Roman villas in the Cotswolds
Love in an elevator
Country house lifts have been going up in the world ever since Queen Victoria’s day, as Melanie Cable-Alexander discovers
Interiors
Ideas and inspiration for your kitchen, with Amelia Thorpe
Where the north wind doth blow
Tiffany Daneff is blown away by panoramic views and weatherproof planting in the garden at Coates Barn in Warwickshire
Kitchen garden cook
Melanie Johnson pairs pears with both sweet and savoury
Foraging
Oyster mushrooms are a woodland delicacy, but vegans might be put off by their carnivorous tendencies, reveals John Wright
The good stuff
Hetty Lintell is on the prowl for luxurious leopard-print pieces
Travel
Steven King heads to Hungary to discover how autumn mists make Tokaji wine irresistible
We band of brothers
Octavia Pollock marvels at the medals of yesteryear, finding that many of their mottos and motifs are works of art in their own right
Right as rain
Michael Prodger dodges the showers to examine drizzle, downpour and deluge in art
The spy who came onto the stage
The first stage adaptation of a Le Carré novel is compelling viewing, says Michael Billington
Boomers Daily 