A peace process can go wrong in many ways, but a real possibility exists that it could go right
What the world could learn from Britain’s flawed approach
Our poll tracker sheds light on that competition. It may yet matter
New research is revealing surprising complexity in the minds of goats, pigs, and other livestock
Biomedical microrobots could overcome current challenges in targeted therapies
Sustainable management approaches are needed to protect coastal environments
The massive buried structures at Gunung Padang in Indonesia would be much older than Egypt’s great pyramids — if they’re even human constructions at all.
Ancient humans painted scenes in Indonesian caves more than 45,000 years ago, but their art is disappearing rapidly. Researchers are trying to discover what’s causing the damage and how to stop it — before the murals are gone forever.
Tumours respond more readily to radiation and other therapies in mice without a specific protein in their dendritic cells.
Times Literary Supplement (December 8, 2023): The latest issue features ‘In her shoes’ – Powell and Pressburger’s ballet classic; Seamus Heaney and the price of fame; Modern warfare; The Tory endgame and Walter Kempowski’s youth under Hitler, and more…
After the Civil War, Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, was to be tried for treason. Does the debacle hold lessons for the trials awaiting Donald Trump?
By Jill Lepore
Jefferson Davis, the half-blind ex-President of the Confederate States of America, leaned on a cane as he hobbled into a federal courthouse in Richmond, Virginia. Only days before, a Chicago Tribune reporter, who’d met Davis on the boat ride to Richmond, had written that “his step is light and elastic.” But in court, facing trial for treason, Davis, fifty-eight, gave every appearance of being bent and broken. A reporter from Kentucky described him as “a gaunt and feeble-looking man,” wearing a soft black hat and a sober black suit, as if he were a corpse. He’d spent two years in a military prison. He wanted to be released. A good many Americans wanted him dead. “We’ll hang Jeff Davis from a sour-apple tree,” they sang to the tune of “John Brown’s Body.”
The companies had honed a protocol for releasing artificial intelligence ambitiously but safely. Then OpenAI’s board exploded all their carefully laid plans.
At around 11:30 a.m. on the Friday before Thanksgiving, Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, was having his weekly meeting with senior leaders when a panicked colleague told him to pick up the phone. An executive from OpenAI, an artificial-intelligence startup into which Microsoft had invested a reported thirteen billion dollars, was calling to explain that within the next twenty minutes the company’s board would announce that it had fired Sam Altman, OpenAI’s C.E.O. and co-founder. It was the start of a five-day crisis that some people at Microsoft began calling the Turkey-Shoot Clusterfuck.
8000 years ago—long before farming arrived—people in Siberia built defensive structures
AI-powered discovery could lead to revolutions in electronics, batteries, and solar cells
Chinstrap penguins fall asleep thousands of times per day in the wild
Around the rich world, wage gaps are shrinking
Few ideas are more unshakable than the notion that the rich keep getting richer while ordinary folks fall ever further behind. The belief that capitalism is rigged to benefit the wealthy and punish the workers has shaped how millions view the world, whom they vote for and whom they shake their fists at. It has been a spur to political projects on both left and right, from the interventionism of Joe Biden to the populism of Donald Trump. But is it true?
Can it survive the Gaza war?
Old stereotypes are haunting the Middle East once more. The biggest butchery of Israeli civilians since the state’s creation, carried out on October 7th, has been followed by a slaughter of Palestinian civilians. America, which has funded, armed and defended Israel is again an object of ire. So are its Western allies. Together they are blamed for facilitating Gaza’s pummelling and the displacement of its people. A truce which began on November 24th, and which was set to expire as The Economist went to press, had led to the release of 81 hostages and 180 Palestinian detainees as of November 28th.
The extra ingredient would explain why the Universe is expanding so fast now — but conflicts with data from ancient quasars.
Smoke from record-breaking fires in 2020 travelled all the way to Cyprus, where it helped to trigger cloud formation.
A bird of prey called the striated caracara can figure out puzzles that are a struggle for Goffin’s cockatoos, which are known for their intelligence.
The Guardian Weekly (November 29, 2023) – The new issue features the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas may have been weeks in the making – as detailed this week by Julian Borger and Ruth Michaelson – and led to the release of dozens of hostages on either side, but behind the scenes there was little expectation that it would lead to a longer-term pause in hostilities.
In a special report, almost two months after the deadliest attack on Israel in its 75-year history and as the world focuses on its retaliatory bombardment of Gaza that has seen around 14,000 people killed, Jonathan Freedland finds a country still convulsed with rage and sorrow, unable to see the pain of its Palestinian neighbours as it faces an uncertain future. As one senior Israeli military figure remarked: “It’s not yet post-traumatic stress disorder. We’re still in it.”
The far-right politician Geert Wilders stunned onlookers by finishing well ahead of the field in the Dutch election last week. But race riots in Ireland, a country previously thought immune to such extremism, were equally shocking. Rory Carroll, Lisa O’Carroll and Jon Henley report on contrasting manifestations of the rise of the far right across Europe.
Times Literary Supplement (December 1, 2023): The new issue features Godzilla returns! – Japan’s nuclear nightmare; Fear of flying at 50; Woolf and the Monuments woman; The lure of Vesuvius, Christmas Books and more…
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