The agreement at the conference of the parties (cop) to the un Framework Convention on Climate Change, which took place in Paris in 2015, was somewhat impotent. As many pointed out at the time, it could not tell countries what to do; it could not end the fossil-fuel age by fiat; it could not draw back the seas, placate the winds or dim the noonday sun. But it could at least lay down the law for subsequent cops, decreeing that this year’s should see the first “global stocktake” of what had and had not been done to bring the agreement’s overarching goals closer.
Science Magazine – November 17, 2023: The new issue features Dolomite, a key mineral in stunning geological formations, such as Drei Zinnen (shown here), Niagara Falls, and Hoodoos. Despite its natural abundance, laboratory growth of dolomite has proven impossible—a contradiction known as the “dolomite problem.”
Nature Magazine – November 23, 2023: The latest issue cover features how cryo-electron microscopy can reveal the structure of motor protein myosin filaments, which power the heart via muscle contraction.
Times Literary Supplement (November 22, 2023): The new issue features Edward Thomas’s journey – The radical turn in English poetry; An AI emergency; Great American history; Magical thinking; Carry On Napoleon, and more…
The New Yorker – November 27, 2023 issue: The new issue‘s cover features Chris Ware’s “Harvest” – The artist discusses the rituals of gathering and building memories.
hen Joyce Carol Oates was thirty-four, she started a journal. “Query,” she wrote on the first page. “Does the individual exist?” She felt that she knew little about herself—for instance, whether she was honest or a hypocrite. “I don’t know the answer to the simplest of questions,” she wrote. “What is my personal nature?”
Seventy years ago, before she was galactically famous, before she dropped an “a” from her first name, before she was a Broadway ingénue, before her nose bump was aspirational, before she changed the way people hear the word “butter,” before she was a macher or a mogul or a decorated matron of the arts, Barbra Streisand was, by her own admission, “very annoying to be around.” She was born impatient and convinced of her potential—the basic ingredients of celebrity, and of an exquisitely obnoxious child. When Streisand was growing up in Brooklyn, in the nineteen-forties, she used to crawl onto the fire escape of her shabby apartment building and conduct philosophical debates with her best friend, Rosyln Arenstein, who was a staunch atheist.
0:15 Kiel is Germany’s first zero-waste city –Kiel has put 107 waste-reducing measures in place. They include practical changes, such as ‘pay-to-throw’, a scheme in which households pay a fee for the amount of landfill waste they generate. Other measures include recycling collection ‘islands’ around the city, discounts for shoppers who bring their own containers and banning disposable products at all city events.
1:33 Gender balanced companies outperform others – According to a BlackRock study of 1,250 of the world’s biggest companies. Over the past decade, the companies with the most equal gender balance achieved a 7.7% average annual return on assets (RoA). Those with the highest share of men delivered a 5.6% RoA, while those with the highest share of women returned a 6.1% RoA. The study concluded it was ‘diversity that counts’ rather than the dominance of a single gender.
3:08 US wants to convert empty offices into homes – The government will offer funding and technical support to help cities turn unused workspaces into affordable apartments. US office vacancy rates have hit a 30-year peak as more staff clock in to work remotely. Meanwhile, rents in the country remain at historic highs after a surge during the pandemic converting offices to apartments can be challenging.
4:48 Rwanda and Kenya open borders to other Africans – Rwanda and Kenya have made significant strides in promoting African unity by opening their borders to other Africans, enabling visa-free travel for all citizens of the continent. This move positions Rwanda as the fourth African nation to remove such restrictions, following Benin, The Gambia, and Seychelles. Kenya is set to join them on December 31, 2023.
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NEW HUMANIST MAGAZINE – WINTER 2023 ISSUE: The new issue features Pavan Amara on the new technologies revolutionising reproduction, Gabriele Di Donfrancesco on Europe’s battle over “family values” and Rachael Lennon on a decade of same-sex marriage, and a new column from Shaparak Khorsandi…
Science Magazine – November 17, 2023:The new issue features Heaps of Warming – Municipal solid waste emits large amounts of greenhouse gases; AI is set to revolutionize weather forecasts; Rewriting DNA in the body lowers cholesterol, and more….
The Economist Magazine (November 18, 2023): The latest issue features The World Ahead 2024 – 90-page guide to the coming year; How the young should invest – Markets have dealt them a bad hand. They could be playing it better; Better ways to fund science – Too much of researchers’ time is spent filling in forms; The best films of 2023 – They featured cattle barons, chefs, composers, physicists and whistleblowers…
Ashadow looms over the world. In this week’s edition we publish The World Ahead 2024, our 38th annual predictive guide to the coming year, and in all that time no single person has ever eclipsed our analysis as much as Donald Trump eclipses 2024. That a Trump victory next November is a coin-toss probability is beginning to sink in.
Rising prices and animal spirits give it a long-awaited opportunity
Global investors are giddy about Japan again. Warren Buffett made his first visit to Tokyo in more than a decade this spring; he has built up big holdings in five trading houses that offer exposure to a cross-section of Japan Inc. Last month Larry Fink, ceo of BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, joined the pilgrimage to Japan’s capital. “History is repeating itself,” he told Kishida Fumio, the prime minister. He likened the moment to Japan’s “economic miracle” of the 1980s. Even disappointing gdp figures released on November 15th will not dent investors’ optimism.
Nature Magazine – November 16, 2023: The latest issue cover features how echinoderms such as starfish and sea urchins have evolved five-fold symmetry, with five limbs radiating from a central mouth.
Boomers Daily 